Mockingbird Summer

Mockingbird Summer is a historical coming-of-age novel by American author Lynda Rutledge published in 2024. The story takes place in 1964 in a small, segregated town in rural Texas during the culmination of the Civil Rights Movement. The novel examines racial segregation in the 1960s Jim Crow South through the lens of Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird, allowing Rutledge to interrogate the cultural changes of the 1960s, racism, the power of friendship and literature, and the everlasting hope for social justice.

In addition to her work as a novelist, Rutledge has worked as a freelance journalist, copywriter, film reviewer, book collaborator, non-fiction author and travel writer. She holds an MA in American Literature and an MFA in Creative Writing and contributes articles to Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Poets & Writers, Houston Post, and San Diego Union-Tribune among others. Her work has earned her awards and residencies from the Illinois Arts Council, Writers League of Texas, Ragdale Foundation, Atlantic Center for the Arts, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Sewanee Writers Conference. Her debut novel Faith Bass Darling’s Last Garage Sale won the 2013 Writers League of Texas Novel of the Year.

This guide uses the 2024 e-book edition by Lake Union Publishing.

Content Warning: The source text discusses racism, discrimination, and violence, references rape, and includes outdated racial terminology that the guide opts not to reproduce in its analysis.

Plot Summary

Kate “Corky” Corcoran grows up in the small, segregated town of High Cotton, Texas, during the 1960s. The railroad tracks divide the segregated town into the Northside, where the white population lives, and the Southside, populated by the town’s Black residents. Rutledge establishes the summer of 1964 as the last of Corky’s childhood, grounding her coming-of-age arc in the culmination of the civil rights movement.

High Cotton was founded by Noah Boatwright I, who acquired the land after the Civil War, built a cotton plantation, and employed Black laborers. The Boatwright family lost the land over the years but preserved their fortune.

Corky, a tomboy who loves literature, lives with her parents, Belle and Cal. She divides her time between school, the church, the library and working at her father’s drugstore—the only one in town. As the summer begins, Corky reads Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. She meets America, a teenage Black girl who comes to Corky’s house with her mother, Evangeline, who works as a caretaker to repay her husband’s debt to Corky’s father. Having lost his job at the railroad, America’s father leaves town to look for work elsewhere. Simultaneously, Corky’s brother Mack returns home from the university for the summer. America and Corky bond over their love of literature but Corky soon recognizes the disparity of educational resources between herself and America, who does not own many books.

Corky and Mack invite America to practice softball with them in the yard and discover that America has a great athletic gift. America outruns Mack who compares her to the fastest woman in the world. Mack’s baseball coach encourages America to practice, but there is no baseball team for girls. The Baptist Pastor invites America to join Corky on the church’s softball team to boost the team’s chances over the Methodist team with whom they have a long rivalry. The team’s racial integration is unprecedented and causes mixed reactions within the High Cotton community.

Mack clashes with his father over his baseball dreams—Cal wants his son to have financial security and continue his studies rather than pursue an unreliable career in sports. Mack’s college studies expose him to the civil rights movement, which deeply influences his thinking. Rejecting racial discrimination as unjust, Mack encourages America to embrace her full potential.

Despite the land they’ve lost, the Boatwrights remain the richest family in town. The family’s patriarch, Noah Boatwright IV, a racist, white man who has an alcohol addiction and abuses his older son, Bubba, holds great social and political power in High Cotton. Now in recovery, Noah serves the Baptist church as a deacon. Corky experiences her first kiss with the youngest Boatwright, Tad.

Noah resents that the church has allowed America to join the softball team. Her bond with Corky grows and Corky looks up to her. Corky loans America Lee’s novel, but America does not have the same perspective on it. She confronts Corky about giving her a book about racial violence, and Corky begins to realize the differences in their lived experiences and the interpersonal and institutionalized racism that America deals with every day of her life.

As America continues practicing with the softball team, Corky notices a mysterious truck watching her house at night and feels scared. She decides to keep it a secret, afraid that she will spoil America’s participation in the softball match. Simultaneously, Corky sees her mother changing. Belle has been a housewife most of her life, and—influenced by the social changes around her—she claims her right to work.

One day after the practice, Bubba and Tad drive by America, Mack, and Corky as they’re walking home, hurling racial slurs at America. Frustrated, Corky steps away from America but instantly regrets it. She realizes that racism is pervasive and rejects her relationship with the Boatwright boys. Days later, Corky transgresses segregation laws and crosses to the Southside to apologize to her friend. America appreciates Corky’s openness and sincerity and accepts her apology. Corky teaches America to ride her horse and they agree to remain friends.

A day before the Baptist-Methodist softball game, a group of Black college students stage a sit-in protest at the Corcoran Drugstore. Mack joins them in their protest and the sit-in proceeds without incident. Noah IV’s reaction makes Corky realize that racial violence is reinforced by white rage. After talking about the event to a reporter, Corky realizes she wants to be a journalist.

Noah IV influences the deacons’ board to exclude America from the softball game, but Mack and Corky advocate for her in the meeting and the deacons change their minds. Ultimately America participates in the match and the Baptist girls’ team wins, bringing both sides of town together as spectators. The hopeful event is marred by racialized violence when two strangers attempt to assault America, dragging her toward the mysterious truck. Mack intervenes, but gets shot in one eye and loses his sight.

The next day, America and her mother leave town. Corky finds a letter from America inside the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird, expressing her hopes that they meet again in the future.

Fifty-six years later, in the summer of 2020, Corky is a retired journalist in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. She recalls the summer of 1964, and remembers America. She resolves to look for her online, but first writes a letter detailing the events of her life after 1964. Her mother Belle joined Cal as a partner in the drugstore and Mack became a history teacher. Corky studied journalism, participated in the women’s rights movement, and married her partner from university. Ending the letter, she notes she is going to write a novel about her friendship with America and begins searching for her online.

A year later, in the summer of 2021, the two childhood friends reunite.