Great American Literature

“She’s one of those iconic authors that most of us grew up with, ” said Stacey Lewis, manager of adult programming at the St. Louis County Library. “It’s a loss to the literary community.”

Lewis first read “To Kill a Mockingbird” as a grade school student in south St. Louis. She’s reread it several times during her 38 years and said that Lee’s strong characters and interesting portrayal of the South in the 1930s would reveal something different to her with each rereading.

“When I was young I more identified with Scout.” But later Lewis understood the perspectives of Boo Radley and Atticus Finch.

Lee died in Alabama at age 89, it was reported Friday.

Kris Kleindienst, co-owner of Left Bank Books in the Central West End, said: “If a white person could only do one thing to constructively address the racial wounds in the United States, writing ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ would certainly be a contender. Harper Lee was that person. We are a better nation because of her book. Also, it’s a damn great piece of writing.”

Susan Barrett of Webster Groves, who loved “Mockingbird” so much she named her own son Atticus, remarked that she was sad about Ms. Lee’s death but “grateful for her humanity.”

“Harper Lee had this incredibly rare gift to point a rose-colored mirror to us and in the last year or so, to turn it around to a clear mirror, questioning our collective reality.”

“Go Set a Watchman, ” published last summer, was an early draft of Ms. Lee’s classic novel about lawyer Atticus Finch and his young children during the Depression in Alabama. “Watchman, ” however, takes place after Scout is grown and she returns to her hometown in conflict with her father’s support of segregation — a portrayal that shocked many fans of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The original 1960 novel should be a “must-read” for everyone, said Gerald Brooks, director of community relations and programming for the St. Louis Public Library.

Although some critics of “Mockingbird” believe that the heroic portrayal of Atticus Finch is patronizing to African-Americans, Brooks, who is black, said that it has always been essential to seek help from anyone willing to aid civil rights.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “did not achieve everything he achieved with African-Americans alone, ” Brooks said.

At Main Street Books in St. Charles, owner Emily Hall said that she remembers reading “Mockingbird” in ninth grade: “I was probably too young to understand all of the nuances and subtext at the time, but I knew that I wanted to be like Scout — curious and imaginative, trying to understand the things that were right and wrong with the world.