My Father and Atticus Finch

My Father and Atticus Finch PDF Author: Joseph Madison Beck
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780820353081
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
My Father and Atticus Finch is the true story of Foster Beck, the author's late father, whose courageous defense of a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama foreshadowed the trial at the heart of Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. After repeatedly being told that his father's case "might have" inspired Ms. Lee, author Beck, now a lawyer himself, located the trial transcript and multiple newspaper articles and here reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama v. Charles White, Alias. On the day of the arrest, the local newspaper reported, under a page-one headline, that "a wandering negro fortune teller giving the name Charles White" had "volunteered a detailed confession of the attack" of a local white girl. However, Foster Beck concluded that the confession was coerced. The same article claimed that "the negro accomplished his dastardly purpose," but as in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was stunning and dramatic testimony at the trial to the contrary. The saga captivated the community with its dramatic testimonies and emotional outcome. This riveting memoir, steeped in time and place, seeks to understand how race relations, class, and the memory of southern defeat in the Civil War produced such a haunting distortion of justice and how it may figure into our literary imagination.

My Father and Atticus Finch

My Father and Atticus Finch PDF Author: Joseph Madison Beck
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780820353081
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
My Father and Atticus Finch is the true story of Foster Beck, the author's late father, whose courageous defense of a black man accused of raping a white woman in 1930s Alabama foreshadowed the trial at the heart of Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. After repeatedly being told that his father's case "might have" inspired Ms. Lee, author Beck, now a lawyer himself, located the trial transcript and multiple newspaper articles and here reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama v. Charles White, Alias. On the day of the arrest, the local newspaper reported, under a page-one headline, that "a wandering negro fortune teller giving the name Charles White" had "volunteered a detailed confession of the attack" of a local white girl. However, Foster Beck concluded that the confession was coerced. The same article claimed that "the negro accomplished his dastardly purpose," but as in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was stunning and dramatic testimony at the trial to the contrary. The saga captivated the community with its dramatic testimonies and emotional outcome. This riveting memoir, steeped in time and place, seeks to understand how race relations, class, and the memory of southern defeat in the Civil War produced such a haunting distortion of justice and how it may figure into our literary imagination.

Atticus Finch

Atticus Finch PDF Author: Joseph Crespino
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 1541644956
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
Who was the real Atticus Finch? A prize-winning historian reveals the man behind the legend The publication of Go Set a Watchman in 2015 forever changed how we think about Atticus Finch. Once seen as a paragon of decency, he was reduced to a small-town racist. How are we to understand this transformation? In Atticus Finch, historian Joseph Crespino draws on exclusive sources to reveal how Harper Lee's father provided the central inspiration for each of her books. A lawyer and newspaperman, A. C. Lee was a principled opponent of mob rule, yet he was also a racial paternalist. Harper Lee created the Atticus of Watchman out of the ambivalence she felt toward white southerners like him. But when a militant segregationist movement arose that mocked his values, she revised the character in To Kill a Mockingbird to defend her father and to remind the South of its best traditions. A story of family and literature amid the upheavals of the twentieth century, Atticus Finch is essential to understanding Harper Lee, her novels, and her times.

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird PDF Author: Harper Lee
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062368680
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

Go Set a Watchman

Go Set a Watchman PDF Author: Harper Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062409875
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller “Go Set a Watchman is such an important book, perhaps the most important novel on race to come out of the white South in decades." — New York Times A landmark novel by Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch—“Scout”—returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise’s homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past—a journey that can only be guided by one’s own conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of the late Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor, and effortless precision—a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context, and new meaning to an American classic.

The Mockingbird Next Door

The Mockingbird Next Door PDF Author: Marja Mills
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698163834
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of the best loved novels of the twentieth century. But for the last fifty years, the novel’s celebrated author, Harper Lee, has said almost nothing on the record. Journalists have trekked to her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, where Harper Lee, known to her friends as Nelle, has lived with her sister, Alice, for decades, trying and failing to get an interview with the author. But in 2001, the Lee sisters opened their door to Chicago Tribune journalist Marja Mills. It was the beginning of a long conversation—and a great friendship. In 2004, with the Lees’ blessing, Mills moved into the house next door to the sisters. She spent the next eighteen months there, sharing coffee at McDonalds and trips to the Laundromat with Nelle, feeding the ducks and going out for catfish supper with the sisters, and exploring all over lower Alabama with the Lees’ inner circle of friends. Nelle shared her love of history, literature, and the Southern way of life with Mills, as well as her keen sense of how journalism should be practiced. As the sisters decided to let Mills tell their story, Nelle helped make sure she was getting the story—and the South—right. Alice, the keeper of the Lee family history, shared the stories of their family. The Mockingbird Next Door is the story of Mills’s friendship with the Lee sisters. It is a testament to the great intelligence, sharp wit, and tremendous storytelling power of these two women, especially that of Nelle. Mills was given a rare opportunity to know Nelle Harper Lee, to be part of the Lees’ life in Alabama, and to hear them reflect on their upbringing, their corner of the Deep South, how To Kill a Mockingbird affected their lives, and why Nelle Harper Lee chose to never write another novel.

My Father and Atticus Finch: A Lawyer's Fight for Justice in 1930s Alabama

My Father and Atticus Finch: A Lawyer's Fight for Justice in 1930s Alabama PDF Author: Joseph Madison Beck
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393285812
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
The story of Foster Beck, the author’s late father, whose defense of a black man accused of rape in 1930s Alabama foreshadowed the trial at the heart of To Kill a Mockingbird. As a child, Joseph Beck heard the stories—when other lawyers came up with excuses, his father courageously defended a black man charged with raping a white woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck reconstructs his father's role in State of Alabama vs. Charles White, Alias, a trial that was much publicized when Harper Lee was twelve years old. On the day of Foster Beck’s client’s arrest, the leading local newspaper reported, under a page-one headline, that "a wandering negro fortune teller giving the name Charles White" had "volunteered a detailed confession of the attack" of a local white girl. However, Foster Beck concluded that the confession was coerced. The same article claimed that "the negro accomplished his dastardly purpose," but as in To Kill a Mockingbird, there was evidence at the trial to the contrary. Throughout the proceedings, the defendant had to be escorted from the courthouse to a distant prison “for safekeeping,” and the courthouse itself was surrounded by a detachment of sixteen Alabama highway patrolmen. The saga captivated the community with its dramatic testimonies and emotional outcome. It would take an immense toll on those involved, including Foster Beck, who worried that his reputation had cast a shadow over his lively, intelligent, and supportive fiancé, Bertha, who had her own social battles to fight. This riveting memoir, steeped in time and place, seeks to understand how race relations, class, and the memory of southern defeat in the Civil War produced such a haunting distortion of justice, and how it may figure into our literary imagination.

Mockingbird

Mockingbird PDF Author: Charles J. Shields
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1250119456
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
An extensively revised and updated edition of the bestselling biography of Harper Lee, reframed from the perspective of the recent publication of Lee's Go Set a Watchman To Kill a Mockingbird—the twentieth century's most widely read American novel—has sold thirty million copies and still sells a million yearly. In this in-depth biography, first published in 2006, Charles J. Shields brings to life the woman who gave us two of American literature's most unforgettable characters, Atticus Finch and his daughter, Scout. Years after its initial publication—with revisions throughout the book and a new epilogue—Shields finishes the story of Harper Lee's life, up to its end. There's her former agent getting her to transfer the copyright for To Kill a Mockingbird to him, the death of Lee's dear sister Alice, a fuller portrait of Lee’s editor, Tay Hohoff, and—most vitally—the release of Lee's long-buried first novel and the ensuing public devouring of what has truly become the book of the year, if not the decade: Lee's Go Set a Watchman.

Cool, Calm & Contentious

Cool, Calm & Contentious PDF Author: Merrill Markoe
Publisher: Villard
ISBN: 0345518926
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
“This is so well written. [When a book like this] comes along, it’s, like, ‘Thank you!’ What a great way to spend an afternoon, an evening, reading these essays. . . . Absolutely great.”—Jon Stewart “[Merrill] Markoe is easily as funny as David Sedaris. She’s capable of manic riffs and acerbic skewering. Still, her good nature shines through.”—The Washington Post In this hilarious collection of candid essays, including two pieces new to this edition, New York Times bestselling author Merrill Markoe reveals much about her personal life—as well as the secret formula for comedy: Start out with a difficult mother, develop some classic teenage insecurities, add a few relationships with narcissistic men, toss in an unruly pack of selfish dogs, finish it off with the kind of crystalline perspective that only comes from years of navigating a roiling sea of unpleasant and unappeasable people, and—voilà—you’re funny! Cool, Calm & Contentious is honest, unapologetic, sometimes heartbreaking, but always shot through with Merrill Markoe’s biting, bracing wit. “This has been a great year for funny women. . . . Let’s call Tina Fey and Mindy Kaling exhibits A and B. Both owe a debt to those who came before, including Merrill Markoe.”—The Boston Globe “Markoe’s goal is to find the absurdity in everyday life. That, coupled with her sharp wit, makes her writing sublime.”—BookPage “Laugh-out-loud humor.”—Tampa Bay Times “Not only crazy-funny, but crazy-heartbreaking.”—The New York Times

Oklahoma's Atticus

Oklahoma's Atticus PDF Author: Hunter Howe Cates
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149620090X
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1953: an impoverished Cherokee named Buster Youngwolfe confesses to brutally raping and murdering his eleven-year-old female relative. When Youngwolfe recants his confession, saying he was forced to confess by the authorities, his city condemns him, except for one man—public defender and Creek Indian Elliott Howe. Recognizing in Youngwolfe the life that could have been his if not for a few lucky breaks, Howe risks his career to defend Youngwolfe against the powerful county attorney’s office. Forgotten today, the sensational story of the murder, investigation, and trial made headlines nationwide. Oklahoma’s Atticus is a tale of two cities—oil-rich downtown Tulsa and the dirt-poor slums of north Tulsa; of two newspapers—each taking different sides in the trial; and of two men both born poor Native Americans, but whose lives took drastically different paths. Hunter Howe Cates explores his grandfather’s story, both a true-crime murder mystery and a legal thriller. Oklahoma’s Atticus is full of colorful characters, from the seventy-two-year-old mystic who correctly predicted where the body was buried, to the Kansas City police sergeant who founded one of America’s most advanced forensics labs and pioneered the use of lie detector evidence, to the ambitious assistant county attorney who would rise to become the future governor of Oklahoma. At the same time, it is a story that explores issues that still divide our nation: police brutality and corruption; the effects of poverty, inequality, and racism in criminal justice; the power of the media to drive and shape public opinion; and the primacy of the presumption of innocence. Oklahoma’s Atticus is an inspiring true underdog story of unity, courage, and justice that invites readers to confront their own preconceived notions of guilt and innocence.

Harper Lee Collection E-book Bundle

Harper Lee Collection E-book Bundle PDF Author: Harper Lee
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062441787
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
From celebrated Pulitzer Prize-winning author Harper Lee, her bestselling novels To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman available together in this convenient e-book bundle. Set in the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, and featuring characters that have become indelible in American culture, Harper Lee’s beloved classic of Southern literature, To Kill a Mockingbird and its follow-up, Go Set a Watchman, offer a haunting portrait of race and class, innocence and injustice, hypocrisy and heroism, tradition and transformation in the Deep South of the 1930s and 1950s that resonates today. Enduring in vision, Harper Lee’s timeless novels illuminate the complexities of human nature and the depths of the human heart with humor, unwavering honesty, and a tender, nostalgic beauty, and will be celebrated by generations to come.