Yet ANOTHER Harper Lee Novel!

[GlenBarrington]

This publication pace is HARD to keep up with!

"Go Set A Watchman" what is essentially a sequel to "To Kill A Mockingbird", though written first will be published in July.

Link to story: http://www.sacbee.com/entertainment/...le9010301.html

[Mike L]

That is amazing news. I'll bet it becomes an instant world-wide bestseller. Thanks for posting it.

Mike

[pendragginp]

I just came to post that too! YAY!!!

[pendragginp]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

This publication pace is HARD to keep up with!
[/url]

Why does the original post say 'yet ANOTHER' novel - there are still only the two, right?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by pendragginp

Why does the original post say 'yet ANOTHER' novel - there are still only the two, right?

I think a bit of joking sarcasm was intended.

[delph]

How exciting! "To Kill A Mockingbird" remains one of my favorite books; I'm really looking forward to reading more of her work.

[ElspethB]

For a different take on this news see this article. I have to admit, as much as I love To Kill a Mockingbird, I don't think anything else she has written will live up to her masterpiece. And after reading the Jezebel article I'm even more concerned.

[delph]

That puts a different complexion on it, though I'm still not horribly concerned. I'm actually not expecting a masterpiece, or for it to be as good. "To Kill a Mockingbird" set such a high standard that I don't feel I should really use it as a bar for setting expectations of another work, even from the same author. I'm mostly interested in her insights into southern US life, having grown up in the southern US myself.

[K. Molen]

I have some reservations too, but not about whether Harper Lee really did or did not want to publish this book.

Instead, I'm concerned about the possible implications of these bits and pieces from the article linked in the first post:

"In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called 'Go Set a Watchman'... It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman..."

Scout has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus... She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father's attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood...

According to the publisher, the book will be released as she first wrote it, with no revisions...

And so my concern is, did Harper Lee remain 100% faithful to her original, unpublished, manuscript of Go Set a Watchman when she crafted To Kill a Mockingbird? Or did she change characterizations, relationships, settings, etc. as she wrote her new book?

To me, the latter seems reasonably likely, since she wasn't intending for Go Set a Watchman to be published. And even if she at the time was thinking that it might one day be published, it would seem to me she still wouldn't have had any reservations about changing things up, figuring she could always edit the previous manuscript if it came to that.

Granted, this is all pure speculation and perhaps just a bunch of hand wringing for no good reason. I'd just hate for it to be a sequel that doesn't gel with it's predecessor.

Either way I know what I'll be reading come July.

[sun surfer]

Heh, I just read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time a little over a month ago - I guess I got to it just in time for the new one.

[Quexos]

Maybe I should get around to reading her main novel and who knows, read this other new one too

[ApK]

This is interesting news.

Is anyone else reminded of the 'Frasier' episode A Cranes' Critique, in which the brothers meet a reclusive one-classic-book author from their youth, and discover that he's just about to publish a second book?

I think Harper Lee stole her life plan from that episode. :-)

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by ElspethB

For a different take on this news see this article. I have to admit, as much as I love To Kill a Mockingbird, I don't think anything else she has written will live up to her masterpiece. And after reading the Jezebel article I'm even more concerned.

The novel WILL get published whether or not these questions are ever resolved to our satisfaction. AND the novel WILL get read. I think to assume that Ms Lee is being exploited is no more appropriate than it is to assume Alice Lee was the one who decided the novel should not be published for reasons of her own. (I'm not making any charges, here, just stating that one speculation is as valid as the other)

Who knows she might need the money. Again, more speculation, but we are unlikely to ever find out.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

The novel WILL get published whether or not these questions are ever resolved to our satisfaction. AND the novel WILL get read. I think to assume that Ms Lee is being exploited is no more appropriate than it is to assume Alice Lee was the one who decided the novel should not be published for reasons of her own. (I'm not making any charges, here, just stating that one speculation is as valid as the other)

Who knows she might need the money. Again, more speculation, but we are unlikely to ever find out.

I agree, rather pointless speculation. And I find the rather one-sided speculation in the article insulting, possibly libelous, to Lee's current lawyer.
(Unless of course the speculation proves to be correct, in which case I applaud their tough, investigative expose'....one or the other. )

[Angst]

This novel actually preceded, and was the basis for To Kill a Mockingbird,

"In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called 'Go Set a Watchman,'" the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper. "It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became 'To Kill a Mockingbird') from the point of view of the young Scout.

Link