How often does a novel earn its author both the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, awarded to Harper Lee by George W. Bush in 2007, and a
spot on a list of "100 best gay and lesbian novels"? Clearly, To
Kill a Mockingbird, Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning tale of race
relations and coming of age in Depression-era Alabama, means many
different things to many different people. In Mockingbird Passing,
Holly Blackford invites the reader to view Lee's beloved novel in
parallel with works by other iconic American writers-from Emerson,
Whitman, Stowe, and Twain to James, Wharton, McCullers, Capote, and
others. In the process, she locates the book amid contesting
literary traditions while simultaneously exploring the rich
ambiguities that define its characters. Blackford finds the basis
of Mockingbird's broad appeal in its ability to embody the
mainstream culture of romantics like Emerson and social reform
writers like Stowe, even as alternative canons-southern gothic,
deadpan humor, queer literatures, regional women's novels-lurk in
its subtexts. Central to her argument is the notion of "passing":
establishing an identity that conceals the inner self so that one
can function within a closed social order. For example, the novel's
narrator, Scout, must suppress her natural tomboyishness to become
a "lady." Meanwhile, Scout's father, Atticus Finch, must contend
with competing demands of thoughtfulness, self-reliance, and
masculinity that ultimately stunt his effectiveness within an
unjust society. Blackford charts the identity dilemmas of other key
characters-the mysterious Boo Radley, the young outsider Dill
(modeled on Lee's lifelong friend Truman Capote), the oppressed
victim Tom Robinson-in similarly intriguing ways. Queer characters
cannot pass unless, like the narrator, Miss Maudie, and Cal, they
split into the "modest double life." In uncovering To Kill a
Mockingbird's lively conversation with a diversity of nineteenth-
and twentieth-century writers and tracing the equally diverse
journeys of its characters, Blackford offers a myriad of fresh
insights into why the novel has retained its appeal for so many
readers for over fifty years. At once Victorian, modern, and
postmodern, Mockingbird passes in many canons.
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