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ptreick 's review for:
True crime + Harper Lee? YES PLEASE.
***
Here's the thing: the title is a bit misleading--it suggests more of a who-done-it, or at least more intersection between Harper Lee and the subject matter. But taken on their own, the different parts of the story are each compelling: a murderer who took out life insurance policies on his victims before dispatching them; a writer whose first novel became so beloved she could simply never top it.
I was most interested in the portions about Harper Lee (although the Maxwell murders were quite compelling). There's great insight into Lee's role in another masterpiece, In Cold Blood, and more information about Go Set a Watchman. I never read that book; it felt like something that Lee didn't intend to publish, and I wanted to respect that. But it was interesting to see that Lee wanted to tell a more complicated story about race, and that while Mockingbird succeeds on so many levels, it's ultimately a simplification of her intended topic.
***
Here's the thing: the title is a bit misleading--it suggests more of a who-done-it, or at least more intersection between Harper Lee and the subject matter. But taken on their own, the different parts of the story are each compelling: a murderer who took out life insurance policies on his victims before dispatching them; a writer whose first novel became so beloved she could simply never top it.
I was most interested in the portions about Harper Lee (although the Maxwell murders were quite compelling). There's great insight into Lee's role in another masterpiece, In Cold Blood, and more information about Go Set a Watchman. I never read that book; it felt like something that Lee didn't intend to publish, and I wanted to respect that. But it was interesting to see that Lee wanted to tell a more complicated story about race, and that while Mockingbird succeeds on so many levels, it's ultimately a simplification of her intended topic.