Mockingbird Grows Up (Paperback)

Michele Reutter

ISBN 13: 9798895271018

Published by University of Tennessee Press, Chicago, 2026

About this Item

Paperback. Although Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prizewinning novel To Kill a Mockingbird has attracted a great deal of attention due to its engaging narrative and its messages about racial and social justice, the controversial "lost novel" Go Set a Watchmanpublished unexpectedly in 2015, a year before the author's deathprovoked resistance from readers who loved the classic. In Mockingbird Grows Up: Re-Reading Harper Lee since Watchman, Cheli Reutter and Jonathan S. Cullick assemble a team of scholars to take on the task of reading, teaching, and contextualizing To Kill a Mockingbird in the wake of Go Set a Watchman. The essays contained in this groundbreaking volume cover a range of literary topics such as race, reading contexts, and American culture. Crucially, the volume revisits the question of African American characterization in Lee's work and reexamines the development of Atticus Finch, a character long viewed as an exemplar of justice and virtue in Lee's fiction. And perhaps most imperative, the editors take on questions regarding the provenance and publication of Go Set a Watchman. For this paperback edition, editors Reutter and Cullick have penned new introductory materials that further discuss the outsized reception of Go Set a Watchman, its effect on Harper Lee's legacy, and how revisiting Maycomb through either novel will never be the same. Literary scholars, educators, and those interested in American and Southern literature will appreciate the light this volume sheds on a classic American novel. Mockingbird Grows Up prepares a new generation to engage with Harper Lee's monumental work. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9798895271018

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Mockingbird Grows Up (Paperback)
• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press, Chicago
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798895271018
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Although Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird has attracted a great deal of scholarly and popular attention due to its engaging narrative and broad appeal to a sense of justice, little has been done to examine the modern classic through the lens of Lee’s controversial “lost” novel Go Set a Watchman, published unexpectedly a year before the author’s death. In Mockingbird Grows Up: Re-Reading Harper Lee since Watchman, Cheli Reutter and Jonathan S. Cullick assemble a team of scholars to take on the task of interpreting, contextualizing, and deconstructing To Kill a Mockingbird in the wake of Go Set a Watchman. The essays contained in this groundbreaking volume cover a range of literary topics, such as race, sexuality, language, and reading contexts. Critically, the volume revisits the question of African American characterization in Lee’s work and reexamines the development of Atticus Finch, a character long believed to be an exemplar of justice and virtue in Lee’s fiction. And perhaps most imperative, the editors take on questions regarding the publication of Go Set a Watchman, and Holly Blackford contributes an essay that places Go Set a Watchman within the pantheon of American literature.

Literary scholars, educators, and those interested in southern literature will appreciate the new light this publication sheds on a classic American novel. Mockingbird Grows Up offers a deeper understanding of a canonical American work and prepares a new generation to engage with Harper Lee’s appealing prose, complex characters, and influential metaphors.

About the Authors

Cheli Reutter is an associate professor of English at the University of Cincinnati and an affiliate faculty member of the university’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her journal articles have appeared in Paper’s on Language and Literature, CEA Critic, Journal of the Society for Multi-Ethnic Literature, and others. She is co-editor of Crisscrossing Borders in Literature of the American West.

Jonathan S. Cullick is professor of English at Northern Kentucky University. He is the author of Making History: Biographical Narratives of Robert Penn Warren and Robert Penn Warren’s All The King’s Men: A Reader’s Companion.