Ala hometown of Harper Lee abuzz over new book

The reclusive 89-year-old Lee was never expected to publish another novel after Mockingbird, which is why the February 2015 announcement of the impending publication of Watchman was particularly explosive.

“I think that we’ve had a lot of really topical things happening in our country in the last year”, said Erin Nelson, who coordinates events at Rediscovered Books in downtown Boise. And it’s this evolution, her realization that the loss of innocence is as much something to be grieved and overcome as the loss of a brother, that lies at the heart of Go Set a Watchman.

Context is everything, and so it’s important to know that “Watchman “was a first effort, set aside after Lee’s editor urged her to turn instead to Scout Finch’s Alabama childhood””. There’s a recognisable sense of child-like wonder in Jean-Louise’s description of her train ride home to Maycomb; it’s the voice of the truly glad to be alive, looking upon the world with much the same inquisitiveness Scout possessed in To Kill A Mockingbird. The character of Atticus finch was voted the greatest movie hero of all-time.

However, she pointed out the classic presents a challenge in that it’s told from a white person’s point of view.

Back in 1963, when her first novel was a literary sensation, Lee was asked how her next book was coming. Lee reportedly worked on two other novels, but they were never published. Communication about it between Lee and her publisher all went through her lawyer, Tonja Carter, formerly an associate in the law firm of Lee’s sister, Alice Finch Lee, who died in November.

What it’s about: The popular chaplain/memoirist writes another chapter of her life, this time about her eldest son’s decision to join the Marines.

Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman“, was written in the 1950s even before she authored her 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning chef d’oeuvre.

“Whether you’ve read the novel or seen the film, there’s this image you have of Atticus as a hero, and this brings him down a peg”, said Adam Bergstein, an English teacher in New York whose 10th- and 11th-grade students read Mockingbird. Of course, this does leave most of the African-American characters as passive victims, in particular the defendant, Tom Robinson, a sacrificial lamb whose main purpose in death seems to be to make the white characters better people. Barnes & Noble wouldn’t release its preorder figures, but HarpersCollins has said “Watchman” is the most preordered book in its history.

Skeptics questioned when the manuscript was found and whether Lee wanted to publish it.

MELISSA GRAY, BYLINE: (Reading) Over her breakfast coffee, she watched the last of Georgia’s hills recede and the red earth appear, and with it, tin-roofed houses set in the middle of swept yards. Her friends Michael and Joy Williams Brown gave Nell, as those close to Harper Lee call her, a generous Christmas gift.

It’s all speculation until Tuesday, when “Go Set a Watchman” will be revealed in full.

Similarly, HarperCollins reports that the upcoming release of Watchman has boosted sales of Mockingbird.

The elusive author of To Kill a Mockingbird is now 89 and in failing health.

But it’s wrong to think the Atticus of “Watchman” cannot be the same as “Mockingbird”.

The book is the No. 1 best-seller on Barnes & Noble’s website, as well as the current top-selling book on Amazon.com.

As stated by numerous accounts, “Go Set a Watchman” is the earliest version of the manuscript that became “To Kill a Mockingbird,” acquired by Lippincott in 1957 and subjected, under the guidance of editor Tay Hohoff, to what Smithsonian Magazine once called “a title-on-down revision”.

Mary Badham, who played Scout in the film version, will be reading from Mockingbird at the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday (tickets and livestream).

Scott Simon, a radio host on NPR who lives in Washington, D.C., reacted with half-serious denial, as did many others.

Harper Lee is one of them. Think Salinger goes on The View, or ABBA reforming, in terms of Least Likely Events to Happen.

Even without the buzz, the novel consistently ranks among contenders for the “great American novel”.