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A couple of years ago, my daughter wanted to read To Kill a Mockingbird. I knew how much I had loved it and, because she was still quite young, suggested we read it together. It all came back, the caught-in-amber feel of Maycomb through Scout's eyes, the sleepiness of the town where nothing happened but was Scout and Jem's everything, I loved Dill, I adored Atticus all over again.

But then there was the court scene - something that I remembered as heroic from my earlier readings. What I had forgotten - or perhaps not noticed? - was the horrific victim-blaming of Mayella. The moment when Tom holds up his withered right hand is the dramatic pivot but before that, Atticus puts Mayella through the ringer telling her that she didn't scream loud enough, that she didn't fight back, all the time knowing that she is the victim of incestuous abuse. It was really quite painful re-reading it. Yes, it was probably representative of the way a lawyer would have fought his case (and many still do) but, God, it was hard to feel the same about noble Atticus after that.

I'm too worried about the yee-haw accents and the clunking scenery to see the theatre production (surely if any adaptation of a novel deserved a lightness of touch and a slight sense of dreaminess, it was one that is all seen through the haze of childhood memory?). Thanks for your review though.

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Loved the Sue Black article

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I love so much that the piece about Angela Gallop names her ghostwriter. Also, I agree about Sue Black.

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