Sweet Home, Alabama
There are many reasons why certain novels transcend style and substance to ransack our hearts. They provide a seminal experience, borderline seductive even, delivering frissons as they lead us down paths as beguiling as they are unexpected. For me, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s sublime 1960 coming-of-age classic, is a first-class ticket for just such a journey. I first read it when I was 16, over a half century ago, and still remember distinct frissons–exhilarating, amusing, at times deeply disturbing–as I followed the adventures of eight-year-old Scout, her older brother Jem and their father Atticus Finch in Depression-era Alabama. No doubt there was special resonance because I was also growing up in the segregated South, well aware of...
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