Mockingbird Summer: A Novel

A powerful and emotional coming-of-age novel set amid the turmoil and profound changes of the 1960s by the bestselling author of West with Giraffes.

In segregated High Cotton, Texas, in 1964, the racial divide is as clear as the railroad tracks running through town. It’s also where two girls are going to shake things up.

This is the last summer of thirteen-year-old Corky Corcoran’s childhood, and her family hires a Haitian housekeeper who brings her daughter, America, along with her. Corky is quick to befriend America and eager to share her favorite new “grown-up” novel, To Kill a Mockingbird. America’s take on it is different and profoundly personal. As their friendship grows, Corky finds out so much more about America’s life and her hidden skill: she can run as fast as Olympian Wilma Rudolph!

When Corky asks America to play with her girls’ softball team for the annual church rivals game, it’s a move that crosses the color line and sets off a firestorm. As tensions escalate, it fast becomes a season of big changes in High Cotton. For Corky, those changes will last a lifetime.

Set on the eve of massive cultural shifts, Mockingbird Summer explores the impact of great books, the burden of potential, and the power of friendship with humor, poignancy, and exhilarating hope.

Lynda Rutledge is the bestselling author of West with Giraffes, selected by Library of Congress–affiliated Texas Center for the Book as their 2023 Great Read. She’s also the author of Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale, winner of the 2013 Writers' League of Texas Fiction Award and adapted into the major 2018 French film La dernière folie de Claire Darling starring Catherine Deneuve. Her fiction has won awards and residencies from Atlantic Center for the Arts, Illinois Arts Council, and Ragdale Foundation, among many others. In her eclectic career before becoming a novelist, she was a copywriter, freelance journalist, film reviewer, book collaborator, and travel writer. After years residing in urban locales including Chicago and San Diego, she currently lives with her husband outside Austin, Texas.

For more information, visit www.lyndarutledge.com.