Even before it was published, with a whopping initial print run of 300,000 in America alone, Donna Tartt's new novel was talked of as a "To Kill a Mockingbird" for our times. That a publisher should be so lucky. Harper Lee's slim Pulitzer-prize winning novel about racial injustice was picked up by three American book clubs almost as soon as it came out in the summer of 1960. Although the story was set in the 1930s, the gathering civil-rights storm gave it a critical contemporary resonance. In its first year, "To Kill a Mockingbird" sold 2.5m copies. By the time its second anniversary rolled around, it had been on the American bestseller lists for 100 weeks. It is easy to see why the two novels should be compared. Indeed the pairing looks irresistible. Like Ms Lee's, Ms Tartt's novel is set in the deep South, though some might argue that Mississippi isn't all that much like Alabama. Both books have a young girl as the heroine seeking justice; both girls are trailed by a side-kick, a boy, and both begin with a murder. But the differences between them are equally, if not more, important.
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