Scout Grows Up

One of the most influential books of the last century is without doubt Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The story of a lawyer who defends a Black man falsely accused of raping a White woman in Depression-ravaged American South, told through the eyes of the lawyer’s six-year-old daughter, became an instant classic when it was published in 1960. It won Harper Lee the Pulitzer Prize, got translated into several languages, and has so far sold more than 40 million copies globally. The book didn’t just introduce millions of young readers to racial inequality and the civil rights struggle in America, it became a classic work of literature as well.

But as the fame of the book grew, its author retreated from the spotlight it cast on her. She became fiercely private, always declined interview requests, and made only rare public appearances, where again she rarely agreed to speak. Despite the success of the book, she never published another novel again, leading some conspiracy theorists to even suggest that the book was ghost-written by Lee’s childhood friend Truman Capote. Over the years, there have been rumours of her working on other novels, first about a follow-up novel to To Kill a Mockingbird called ‘The Long Goodbye’ and later about a novel on an Alabama serial murderer, but nothing came of these.

Now, 55 years since the release of Lee’s only book, it has been announced that a new novel by her will be published this July. Titled Go Set a Watchman, it is being called a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird. It takes place 20 years later in the same fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama, when the narrator of To Kill a Mockingbird, Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, returns from New York to visit her father, the lawyer Atticus Finch. The new book, it is said, tackled the racial tension that wracked the Southern state in the 50s.

According to its publisher HarperCollins, US, Go Set a Watchman was actually written before To Kill a Mockingbird. She abandoned that book, it seems, but, upon the advice of her editor, reworked parts of its narrator’s flashback sequences of childhood to use as a kernel for To Kill a Mockingbird. In the press statement put out by the publisher, Lee explains, “I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told.”

According to the press statement, Lee had thought the manuscript of Go Set a Watchman had gotten lost over the years. But last year, her friend and lawyer Tonja Carter found it—attached to an original typescript of To Kill a Mockingbird. “After much thought and hesitation,” Lee revealed, “I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication.”

But there are questions being raised over the publication of Lee’s new book, chiefly about whether it has her informed consent. She is now 88 years old and resides in an assisted-living facility. A stroke in 2007 left her wheelchair-bound, forgetful, and largely deaf and blind. Her elder sister and lawyer, Alice Lee, who she once referred to as ‘Atticus in a skirt’ and who had guarded her estate and privacy all these decades, died less than three months ago.

Just two years earlier, it had emerged that a relative of her former literary agent had tricked her into assigning him the copyright to To Kill a Mockingbird, and she had to take him to court to regain it. Last year, she had to file a lawsuit over a museum that was using her name and the title of her book to sell souvenirs without her consent.

As Alice revealed in a letter dated 12 May 2011, one that was made public, her sister ‘can’t see and can’t hear and will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence.’

And then there is the question facing each reader of the book who grew up enraptured by Scout: do we ever want her to grow up?

Go Set a WatchmanHarper LeeTo Kill a Mockingbird