The prestigious author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee, has allowed her long-lost book, Go Set a Watchman, to be published. It was written before Mockingbird, which was published in July of 1960, and portrayed lawyer Atticus Finch, losing a case he represented for a local black man, Tom Robinson, who was accused of raping a white woman. The legal representation was not popular at that time (30’s Depression Era) with the town. Many moral, ethical, and racial issues ensued. Go Set a Watchman is another controversial novel which sheds a very different light on the character of Atticus Finch. The main plot is a description of the return of Scout Finch back to her small hometown of Maycomb from New York, to visit her father. During her visit, she has flashbacks to her childhood and the chaos of the trial. These flashbacks were the material from which Mockingbird was written years later.
In 2014 Lee’s lawyer was examining her safe deposit box and found Lee’s manuscript for Watchman, which had previously been thought to be lost. The book, even though pre-Mockingbird, was initially thought to be a trilogy with it being the first, a shorter connecting novel, then Watchman as the third.
In 2006, Harper Lee wrote: “Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods, and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books”. As for the publishing of Go Set a Watchman, she stated that she is still alive, kicking, and happy that she is humbled and amazed that it is now published after all those years. One reviewer has this to say about Go Set a Watchman: “It doesn’t quite reach that standard (of Mockingbird) but it is a great read in itself…….a fan like myself will really enjoy it.
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