(Spoilers) For lovers of "To Kill a Mockingbird" this is a hard pill to swallow. Written before Mockingbird, which acts as a prequel to this tale, we see here an adult "Scout" returning to her hometown. She has the experience so many of us have -- seeing our heroes with new eyes when nostalgia meets hard reality. She (and the readers) see the flaws glossed over in Mockingbird. It is a more nuanced tale. Scout is trying to find her place in the world, and finding herself in the process. She turns to her father, Atticus, only to find an aging man who is more racist than she ever imagined. He believes in the law, but not in equality for Blacks. The man she looked up to spouts replacement theory, talking about the "invasion" of mongrels. the book starts slowly but quickly becomes rich with the prose which made Harper Lee such a good writer. Scout's internal dialog ebbs and flows with bits of conversation around her, weaving the story together like a tapestry. There are lots of memorable and noteworthy quotes, many which are very applicable to today's America. The book ends more with intellectualism than heart, however, and there are no clear answers. "To Kill a Mockingbird" was a terrific lesson on our nation's dark history, but this book is a balancing note of where we went from there.
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