Sam Tanenhaus answers the question of To Kill a Mockingbird‘s endurance.

“For all the merits of the latest criticism of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” its appeal never rested on its realistic picture of Southern life. It was anachronistic even in its day (one reason, perhaps, that Lee set the action much earlier). There were sit-ins in Nashville and in Greensboro, N.C., in February 1960, five months before “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published. Within a year the Freedom Rides had challenged Lee’s sorting of humanity into simple categories — the high-minded Finches and the humble, hard-working African-Americans who look to them for protection, both groups united against the ‘ignorant, trashy people’ who represent the true danger to the community.” (via Books, Inq.)