![]() ![]() Alien and other – who or what exactly was a chiffarobe? yet also oddly familiar the hijinks of Jem, Dill and Scout almost a continuation in my mind of Huck and Tom’s mischief that my father had read aloud to me as a child. I remember curling up in our bottle green garden swing and drinking down those lyrical, lilting sentences – repeating them out loud, over and over again in a poor attempt at the Southern vernacular of their scripting. When enough years had gone by for us to discuss with objectivity and humour my mother’s many other ‘nudges’ during my teenage years, often not as welcome as that summertime gesture, we both agreed that neither of us could have known then the enduring impact of that gift. ![]() Though warning my Mother that I was perhaps still a little too young for some of the novel’s content, she assured her that any time given to learning the lessons of the small Deep South town of Maycomb was time well spent. Keen to feed my teenage reading needs during the long summer holidays, she had asked Mrs Harries, a retired English teacher who lived a few doors away, for her recommendation. When I was 13, my mother gave me my first, and most treasured copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. Cerith Mathias reflects on the new novel from Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman and the impact of Lee’s first novel To Kill a Mockingbird. ![]()
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