Harper Lee’s not-so-new novel

Harper Lee’s not-so-new novel February 19, 2015

Quite a few novelists–Joseph Heller, J. D. Salinger, Ralph Ellison–have written one great novel, but then wrote nothing else, or nothing else in its league.  One of those writers is Harper Lee, whose To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, makes the bestseller lists to this day.  So readers have been excited to hear that she is coming out with another novel, Go Set a Watchman, which won’t even be released until July 14 but is already an Amazon bestseller.

But this is not exactly a new novel.  Apparently, it’s the first draft of what would later become Mockingbird.  It’s the story of an adult woman, who goes by the nickname of “Scout,” who goes to visit her aged father Atticus, whereupon the story is told, in third person, as a reminiscence.  When she showed it to a publisher, the editor recommended that she re-write the book from the point of view of Scout as a child.  That was brilliant advice, since one of the things that makes Mockingbird such great fiction is the narrative voice and the perspective of young Scout, who tells a warm and often humorous tale of growing up in the deep south, which suddenly turns serious as her father, an attorney, bravely defends a black man in a rape trial.

So if Watchman tells the same story, but without Scout’s point of view, it’s hard to see the point.  Plus, controversy has broken out over whether Ms. Lee, in poor health in a nursing home, really wanted this manuscript published.  But still, the book will surely be worth reading.  If nothing else, early drafts are often a clue to the author’s original intentions.From Harper Lee to publish sequel to ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ – The Washington Post:

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed, “There are no second acts in American lives,” but Harper Lee is out to prove him wrong.

The beloved author will publish her second novel this summer. “Go Set a Watchman” was written more than 50 years ago — before her Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, “To Kill a Mockingbird” — but it was never published.

In a statement released this morning, the 88-year-old author explained that when she was just starting off, she wrote “Go Set a Watchman” about a woman nicknamed Scout who returns home to Maycomb to visit her father, Atticus. After reading the manuscript, her editor asked her to rewrite the story from the point of view of Scout as a child. “I was a first-time writer,” Lee said, “so I did as I was told.” The result was “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a novel that has sold 40 million copies since it was first published in 1960.

The original story, “Go Set a Watchman,” was forgotten.

“I hadn’t realized it had survived,” Lee said, “so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”

[Keep reading. . .]

There is some controversy over all of this, but it looks like it may be overblown.

For the full story, including an account of both the manuscript’s reception by publishers and the controversy over Ms. Lee and the people who manage her literary affairs, go here.

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