In Search of Mockingbird (review)

Erin's mother died when Erin was a week old; now it's 1986, Erin's sixteen, and she's still clinging to a fantasy that she can somehow forge a connection with her mother through their shared love of the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Armed with her mother's teen-years diary, Erin runs away to Monroeville, Alabama, to try to meet the reclusive Harper Lee. Aboard the Greyhound, she meets a host of diverse people, starting with Sedushia the itinerant stripper, who get behind her project of seeking out a connection with her mom through Lee. She also meets Epp, an overweight geek with a dream of his own—to design a game for an Atari 800—who takes responsibility for her and helps her avoid police and hitch a ride to her final destination. Initially, Erin's character is scantily developed, making her flight seem absurdly abrupt and ill-conceived; indeed, in the end she admits that it was stupid to think that Harper Lee could make her feel better about never knowing her mom. The events of her trip are what they invented the word "hokey" for: after helping Sedushia reconnect with her estranged son, Erin becomes a folk hero on the bus, accompanied by a soundtrack of actual applause and well-wishing from a cast of hackneyed and overladen characters. By the time she realizes that the two women in the Monroeville diner who overhear her conversation and offer her the advice to write a letter to her mother are in fact Harper Lee and her sister, the narrative has moved beyond hokey into mawkish country-ballad territory with no return ticket. Readers looking for an exploration of a single book's effect will fare far better with Portman's King Dork (BCCB 5/06).