Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters: What Harper Lee's Book and the Iconic American Film Mean to Us Today

by Tom Santopietro

Overview

With forty million copies sold, To Kill a Mockingbird's poignant but clear-eyed examination of human nature has cemented its status as a global classic. Tom Santopietro’s book Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters takes a 360-degree look at the Mockingbird phenomenon, both on page and screen.

Santopietro traces the writing of To Kill a Mockingbird and the impact of the Pulitzer Prize, and he investigates both the claims that Lee’s book is actually racist and the worldwide controversy surrounding the 2015 publication of Go Set a Watchman. Here too, for the first time, is the full behind-the-scenes story regarding the creation of the 1962 film, one that has entered the American consciousness in a way that few other films ever have. From the earliest casting sessions to the 'scars and the Fiftieth Anniversary screening at the White House, Santopietro examines exactly what makes the movie and Gregory Peck's unforgettable performance as Atticus Finch so captivating.

As Americans yearn for an end to divisiveness, there is no better time to look at the significance of Harper Lee's book, the film, and all that came after.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493052523
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	11/15/2019
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	246,948
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Tom Santopietro is the author of The Sound of Music Story, Barbara Cook: Then and Now, The Godfather Effect, The Importance of Being Barbra, Considering Doris Day (a New York Times Editor’s Choice), and Sinatra in Hollywood. A frequent media commentator and interviewer, he lectures on classic films, and over the past thirty years has managed more than two dozen Broadway shows.

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE- MONROEVILLE, ALABAMA

CHAPTER TWO- MANHATTAN

CHAPTER THREE- PUBLICATION

CHAPTER FOUR- WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD?

CHAPTER FIVE- ATTICUS FINCH ON FILM

CHAPTER SIX- ENTER HORTON FOOTE

CHAPTER SEVEN- CASTING THE MOVIE

CHAPTER EIGHT- FROM PULITZER PRIZE TO HOLLYWOOD DREAM TEAM

CHAPTER NINE- MAYCOMB COMES TO LIFE

CHAPTER TEN- ON SCREENS AROUND THE WORLD

CHAPTER ELEVEN- A STRAIGHT SHOT TO THE HEART

CHAPTER TWELVE- IS TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD RACIST?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN- THE LEGEND GROWS: NELLE HARPER LEE’S FIFTY-FIVE YEARS OF SILENCE

CHAPTER FOURTEEN- LIFE AFTER TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

CHAPTER FIFTEEN- GO SET A WATCHMAN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN- THEME AND VARIATIONS: EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN- AT PEACE

Editorial Reviews

Absorbing and full of beguiling detail.

USA Today

Tom Santopietro gets to the heart of the matter in every subject he has tackled in his illustrious career. His latest, the story behind the great American novel To Kill A Mockingbird and its superb film adaptation is fascinating. This gifted author takes you inside the world that inspired the novel and the process that led to its telling as only he can. Inspiring, hopeful and surprising at every turn, this is a glorious read in the moment we need it most.

Adriana Trigiani

A fascinating new book. Santopietro does To Kill a Mockingbird proud. Even Harper Lee―so reticent, so resistant to attention―would have been mighty pleased at this affectionate, meticulous and masterful explanation as to why Mockingbird still matters.

Denis Ferrara

I barreled through Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters, Tom Santopietro’s comprehensive and multi-faceted investigation of Mockingbird’s backstory, the movie’s making, and the enduring influence of a story which, as Santopietro observes, is simultaneously straightforward and complex, traditional and subversive. Santopietro masterfully examines the novel’s impact during the era in which it was published and also within the context of these present, more cynical times of race-baiting politics, the Black Lives Matter movement, and what readers might make of that flawed “other” Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman. If, like me, you’re a fan and a student of To Kill a Mockingbird, you will love this fascinating and timely book.

Wally Lamb

Santopietro has certainly done his homework, and he applies the rigor of his knowledge admirably. .. Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters is astute.

New York Times Book Review

04/23/2018
The cultural impact of Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, and its film adaptation two years later, is the subject of this clear-eyed appraisal of their enduring relevance. Paying meticulous attention to detail, Santopietro (The Sound of Music Story) crafts a compressed history of the book and film, beginning with Lee’s childhood in Monroeville, Ala., the inspiration for the novel’s town of Maycomb, and ending with the publication of Go Set a Watchman, the novel’s original and vastly different first draft, in 2015. Along the way he dispenses little-known facts culled from interviews and other secondary sources, such as the leading men initially considered to play Atticus Finch—Bing Crosby, Rock Hudson, and Spencer Tracy, among them—before the role landed with Gregory Peck for a career-defining performance. Santopietro shrewdly refers to the novel as “the right book in the right place at the right time” to resonate with a growing civil rights movement, and in later chapters relates its theme to recent racially charged incidents, including the violence that convulsed Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017. Readers not familiar with the stories behind the novel and film will find much to relish. Agent: Malaga Baldi, Baldi Agency. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Fans of To Kill a Mockingbird, the film and the novel, will enjoy this work. “
—Library Journal

“Meticulous attention to detail… Readers not familiar with the stories behind the novel and film will find much to relish.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Absorbing and full of beguiling detail.”
—USA Today

“A detailed account of a classic novel's context, transformation, and acclaim.”
—Kirkus Reviews


"Santopietro has certainly done his homework, and he applies the rigor of his knowledge admirably... Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters is astute."—New York Times Book Review


"A fascinating new book. Santopietro does To Kill a Mockingbird proud. Even Harper Lee—so reticent, so resistant to attention—would have been mighty pleased at this affectionate, meticulous and masterful explanation as to why Mockingbird still matters. "
—New York Social Diary, Denis Ferrara


"Tom Santopietro gets to the heart of the matter in every subject he has tackled in his illustrious career. His latest, the story behind the great American novel To Kill A Mockingbird and its superb film adaptation is fascinating. This gifted author takes you inside the world that inspired the novel and the process that led to its telling as only he can. Inspiring, hopeful and surprising at every turn, this is a glorious read in the moment we need it most."
—Adriana Trigiani, bestselling author of Kiss Carlo


"I barreled through Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters, Tom Santopietro’s comprehensive and multi-faceted investigation of Mockingbird's backstory, the movie’s making, and the enduring influence of a story which, as Santopietro observes, is simultaneously straightforward and complex, traditional and subversive. Santopietro masterfully examines the novel’s impact during the era in which it was published and also within the context of these present, more cynical times of race-baiting politics, the Black Lives Matter movement, and what readers might make of that flawed “other” Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman. If, like me, you’re a fan and a student of To Kill a Mockingbird, you will love this fascinating and timely book."


—Wally Lamb, bestselling author of I Know This Much Is True

From the Publisher

2018-04-03
A detailed account of a classic novel's context, transformation, and acclaim.Translated into 40 languages, with sales of some 40 million copies since its publication in 1960, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird has become famous worldwide. Adapted on film, it earned its star, Gregory Peck, an Oscar for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, a role that defined him for the rest of his career. In an affectionate homage, media journalist and Broadway show manager Santopietro (The Sound of Music Story: How a Beguiling Young Novice, A Handsome Austrian Captain, and Ten Singing von Trapp Children Inspired the Most Beloved Film of All Time, 2015, etc.) asserts that Lee's novel still sends a relevant message to 21st-century readers. "By wrapping a nostalgic look back at childhood around a clear-eyed gaze at how racism diminishes and damages an entire community," he maintains, Lee offers a way to perceive "America's racial history with a fresh set of eyes." Most of Santopietro's book, though, does not elaborate any more deeply on why Lee's novel matters, or to whom. He covers ground that Joseph Crespino examined in his recently published Atticus Finch: Lee's youth in Alabama; her relationship with her father, a lawyer and model for Atticus; her friendship with Truman Capote; the prolonged writing and revising of the novel, which became an immediate bestseller; and her subsequent writing career, which ended in the long-awaited publication of Go Set a Watchman. To this biographical overview, Santopietro adds a close look at the movie's creation: with Alan Pakula as producer, Robert Mulligan as director, and Horton Foote as screenwriter; and with Gregory Peck (rather than Lee's ardent hope of Spencer Tracy) to play Atticus. The author details casting decisions, especially the search for the perfect girl to play Scout; and the work of designing costumes and constructing sets on the Universal backlot to bring Lee's Alabama town to life. He conveys, as well, critics' reception of the movie and summarizes the major figures' post-Mockingbird careers.For Mockingbird and Harper Lee devotees.

Kirkus Reviews