Joseph Crispino, Atticus Finch: The Biography: Harper Lee, Her Father, and the Making of An American Icon (New York: Basic Books, 2018) ("With the publication of [Comes a] Watchman, however, we know now not only that the Atticus of Mockingbird was always too good to be true, but that Harper Lee knew it as well. She knew all the things that Jean Louise discovers in Watchman: that Atticus's' kindly paternalism covered ugly beliefs about racial difference; that his willingness to represent black clients was in service to the racial status quo; that Calpurnia and all of Maycomb's black population lived behind a veil; that what as a child she had assumed was genuine, reciprocal love and devotion across the color line was more like an elaborate act intended to ease, for whites, the guilt and, for blacks, the burden of racial injustice." Id. at 173.).
Tom Santopietro, Why To Kill a Mockingbird Matters: What Harper Lee's Book and the Iconic American Means to Us Today (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2018) (From the book jacket: "As Americans yearns for a 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.").
