Tuesday is your chance to get reacquainted with someone you thought you knew.
Say hello to Mr. Finch, possible closet bigot. A man whose daughter’s estimation of him, like his health, is faltering.
That’s Atticus Finch, the lawyer in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.” He’s also featured in Lee’s second volume, “Go Set a Watchman.” The book, the biggest literary sensation of the year, goes on sale Tuesday.
Few fictional figures loom larger than he, the small-town southern lawyer who stood for justice in a racially charged 1930s rape trial. As portrayed by Gregory Peck in a 1962 film of the same name, Atticus was a savior in seersucker, led by conscience to do what’s right.
So, it’s been with shock and dismay that loyal fans have learned that in “Watchman,” a different Atticus emerges. He’s older now — and, perhaps, hardened by the passage of years. He’s the man who attends a racially contentious town meeting, the fellow who has a racist brochure in his home.
The man whom Jean Louise Finch — “Mockingbird’s” Scout — adored as a child. But now that she’s grown?
Well, we’ve all grown some since “Mockingbird” won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Yet some figures resist change because we like them the way they are — none more so, perhaps, than Atticus. Readers have adopted him as their surrogate father; they don’t want his image stained. He’s inspired people to become lawyers. Parents have named their kids after him.
News that a darker Atticus appears in the pages of a work of fiction also cannot help but underscore the role of race in real-life events unfolding now: of nine people gunned down in a Charleston church; of a hateful young man charged with their killings; and the uproar over the public display of the Confederate battle flag.
Could the beloved Atticus have harbored racist tendencies, too? Consider this question he poses to his daughter in “Watchman:”
“Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”
“Everyone has duality to them,” said Debora Walker of Decatur, who pre-ordered a digital copy of Lee’s second book. “Yes, he’s fighting for what’s right in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t take on some of the attitudes of his surroundings.”
Concerns about this latest Atticus have done nothing to lessen demand for “Watchman.” From July 8 until Monday morning, the number of “holds,” or reservations to check out a copy of the book, rose by close to 90 requests each at library systems in Cobb, DeKalb and Gwinnett.
‘Flirted with the Klan’
Atticus was at his best in a courtroom, said Robert H. Brinkmeyer, director of the Institute For Southern Studies at the University of South Carolina. Brinkmeyer just finished reading “Mockingbird” for the fourth or fifth time.
His take from rereading Lee’s first novel? Atticus believed that everyone was equal — in the courtroom, anyway.
“Out in the street, he doesn’t advocate” social change, said Brinkmeyer. “Even though he sees the humanity of black people, there’s no questioning of the system, except in the courtroom.”
A prejudiced Atticus makes sense historically, said Jim Grimsley, professor of creative writing at Emory University. “Atticus and men like him flirted with the Klan,” Grimsley wrote in a blog over the weekend, “opposed integration, and saw dark skin as a mark of inferiority; even good people entertain bad ideas, and even people who rise to heroism have deep flaws.”
“Watchman,” Grimsley said Monday, might remove the “paternalistic glow” that made Lee’s first novel a feel-good story.
Some whites prefer racial narratives in a form that celebrates a white hero helping a long-suffering black victim, he said. Because readers are so fond of the characters in “Mockingbird,” they overlook that paternalist distortion.
“There’s not a single moment of equality between black and white characters in that book,” Grimsley said.
That doesn’t lessen the book’s value in classrooms, said Peggy Corbett, chair of the English department at Creekview High School in Cherokee County. In a 27-year career, she’s taught “Mockingbird” to at least 1,000 students.
Corbett recalled the scene in which Scout witnesses her father defending his client, a black man accused of raping a white woman. Scout’s hiding in the balcony — in the segregated South, hers was the only white face up there — and learns two things: that she is privileged, because of her race; and her father is, at that moment, a hero.
“He’s doing the right thing,” said Corbett.
It’s an image Emery Roth embraces. She read the novel last year as an eighth-grader at the Atlanta Neighborhood Charter Middle School. She came away enthralled with Scout and impressed with her father.
“She was raised to treat others with respect,” said Emery, who’ll be a ninth-grader at Maynard Jackson High School this fall. “My parents have raised me to do the same.”
Christina Martin remembered “Mockingbird” as the first book she read that dealt with important, timely topics — justice, for one; racism, for another. She’s now a junior at the University of Georgia, but still considers Lee’s book one of the most important she has read so far in her 19 years.
“It had more substance than other books,” said Christina, who read “Mockingbird” in the eighth grade.
A substance that transcends the literary world, too. Consider: In a 2004 Social Security Administration ranking of popular names for male babies, “Atticus” came in at No. 937. Ten years later, it had moved up to 370.
And this: Savannah lawyer and former state Rep. Tom Bordeaux identified so strongly with Atticus — like him, a southern lawyer and politician — that he gave his son the middle name of Atticus.
He’s not regretting the moniker, no matter what sort of Atticus bows in the pages of Lee’s next book.
“He was a good man and a decent man, I suspect,” Bordeaux said from his Savannah law office. “He was a creature of the law but also a creature of his time.”
Still, Bordeaux said he’s a little saddened to learn that some of Atticus’ luster had faded. “I guess we all have to grow up and I guess we all have to realize our daddies aren’t perfect,” he said.
Will he read this latest book? Bordeaux paused.
“I don’t think so,” he answered. “I’m 61. I’ve had a lot of joys and lot of disappointments in my life. I think I’ve reached the age where I can pick and choose my disappointments.
“So, I am going to just let Atticus be.”
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