Maycomb

Maycomb is the fictional Alabama town where Harper Lee's novel *To Kill a Mockingbird* is set.

The name evokes small-town Southern life during the Depression era—its insularity, racial tensions, and slow pace.

Writers sometimes use Maycomb as shorthand for that particular mix of Southern gentility and entrenched prejudice: It was a Maycomb kind of place, where everyone knew your business and your grandfather's sins.