Harper Lee

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/80761000/jpg/_80761302_6192901a-1422-447d-8b7a-dfa58266bbc8.jpg

Harper Lee is to publish her second novel - 55 years after To Kill A Mockingbird.

Go Set a Watchman, a novel the Pulitzer Prize-winning author completed in the 1950s and put aside, will be released on 14 July, her publishers said.

It is essentially a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, featuring Scout Finch as an adult - although it was actually written first.

Lee's editor persuaded her to rework some of the story's flashback sequences as a novel in their own right. That book became Mockingbird.

"I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told," said the author in a statement. "I hadn't realised it [the original book] had survived, 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."

Wow!

holy cow

When you've never published anything else, it must be genuinely terrifying to put out something that cannot fail to be compared to one of the best loved and best selling books of all time.

vashti bunyan pwned

So assuming it's good, which one would future generations read first?

Not sure if I'm ready for Scout as a grown-up. It's like contemplating Charlie Brown as a dentist or something.

This is kind of mind-blowing. I guess 1960 isn't a crazily the long ago, but somehow Harper Lee feels as far back as Steinbeck. Probably just because of when the book is set.

crazily the long

I'm a bit wary after reading this article...

the fact that she wrote it at the same time makes this genuinely promising and exciting

don't see anything in that article that should make you wary of a book she wrote before Mockingbird.

It's more, I'm not sure that is 100% true? Tonja Carter has allegedly sent out wrong statements in Lee's name before...

I gather the issue now is what jezebel is reporting, which is that it's odd this is happening so soon after her sister/lawyer died and that Harper Lee may be senile and now aware of how this agreement has happened. But, that is making an awful lot of assumptions.

i barely got to be excited about this & u guys are already bumming me out

*kicks dirt*

jezebel and random conspiracy theorists on twitter are not enough to convince me that this isn't a legitimate and authorized publication. there are lots of reasons a person of her age, maybe in failing health, might want to do this.

Sequel Joke 2: Electric Sequeloo

Kill Mo' Mockingbird

Mockingbird 2: The Scoutening

saw 2 Kill 2 Mockingbird elsewhere

MockingBURR

racism is back and madder than hell!

Legend of Radley's Gold

Electric Boo-galoo

Scout in the City

jezebel and random conspiracy theorists on twitter are not enough to convince me that this isn't a legitimate and authorized publication. there are lots of reasons a person of her age, maybe in failing health, might want to do this.

there are very few reasons to believe the MS is even legit, and approximately none to believe that it's being issued with Lee's awareness and approval.

Given the both the track record of belatedly released lost books or sequels (Joseph Heller, Ralph Ellison, etc.) as well as the aggressive wrangling over Lee's rights/estate, I am suspicious. Also not sure, per Heller's "Closing Time," that I want a sequel to such a beloved, perfect book.

well this thread got depressing fast

God knows Mockingbird kicks the ass of a lot of other Required Reading of my HS years (A Separate Peace, anyone?) but c'mon, it's just a particularly memorable white-savior tale.

the movie's a lot better than it should have been.

that's 80% due to Mulligan's direction of the child performances, i think.

it's just a particularly memorable white-savior tale

It's also beautifully written, which puts it ahead of most books, period, white-savior tale or no. And frankly, I don't think it's fair to taint its reputation with the countless white-savior tales that have followed in its wake.

it's probably the only required reading that everybody i know remembers fondly, so it must have done something right.

that's 80% due to Mulligan's direction of the child performances, i think.

― touch of a love-starved cobra (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, February 4, 2015 11:19 AM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that and his customarily subtle subjective camera. i like the book a lot, but it's precisely the kind of book that was more likely to get the white-gloves stanley kramer treatment. we're lucky mulligan and pakula optioned it.

the movie's a lot better than it should have been.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Wednesday, February 4, 2015 5:06 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've only seen the movie once, in sections, while at school and didn't enjoy it - found it stuffy and really jarring compared to my interpretation of the book, particularly the father/children relationship. May give it another go, though.

it's worth seeing again, esp. if you have a little more distance from the book.

About 16 or 17 years should do the trick!

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/02/friends_say_harper_lee_was_man.html

worst url yet

It seems pretty incredibly shady?

http://the-toast.net/2015/02/04/questions-harper-lee-editor-interview/

Harper Lee — we call her Nelle

What do you mean "we," white man?

She’s getting progressively deafer and more blind

she’s very deaf and going blind

Yeah, tell me about, things seem to be progressing very quickly from "deafer" to "very deaf."

If they knew what was right they would put this manuscript under glass in a museum somewhere and let people look at it but never read it.

you guys know Dill was Truman Capote, right?

And isn't Harper Lee also in Other Voices, Other Rooms?

isn't there a crazy (sexist) rumor that Capote actually wrote To Kill a Mockinbird?

yes, but i prefer the rumor that lee actually wrote "in cold blood."

it's a pretty persistent rumor.

has anyone done that statistical prose analysis on the book. obviously that sort of thing is far from definitive, since even if some dominant similarities were to be found, lee could have been influenced by capote... or if few similarities could be found, capote could have been consciously trying to write in a different style. but it'd be interesting, perhaps.

xpost

I've only seen the movie once, in sections, while at school and didn't enjoy it

^^ for me too, though it may also have been the old VHS tape which meant Scout's high-pitched voice was blurred into incomprehensibility that didn't help

like kissing?

totally played footsie during la petite sirene

in my driver's ed class we were shown the car crash parts of FACES OF DEATH

sometimes our Latin teacher fast-forwarded through the longest sex scenes in I CLAVDIVS

I'm sure eventually Capote wrote a line of dialogue as hamfisted as "Stand up, your daddy is passing by," but I haven't read it.

we saw Mockingbird in high school... and The Pawnbroker, with BREASTS

I thought Rod Steiger's problem was bad accents.

has anyone done that statistical prose analysis on the book. obviously that sort of thing is far from definitive, since even if some dominant similarities were to be found, lee could have been influenced by capote... or if few similarities could be found, capote could have been consciously trying to write in a different style. but it'd be interesting, perhaps.

No it wouldn't. Why would someone do such thing on the basis of those idiotic rumours?

There is this piece on the book:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/feb/06/to-kill-mockingbird-harper-lee-overrated-sequel-go-set-watchman

I haven't read since school. Too long and its not the kind of thing I'd pick up again.

Its been too long for me to recall my impressions of it, is what I meant.

sometimes our Latin teacher fast-forwarded through the longest sex scenes in I CLAVDIVS

― oochie wally (clean version) (sic), Friday, 6 February 2015 03:10 (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's just gonna skew the kids' future expectations!

Is Dr. Manhattan going to be in this Watchman book y/n?

more likely cool fan fiction about what The Comedian did between Korea and 'Nam.

wasn't really looking forward to any of the inevitable thinkpieces that try to blow your mind by arguing that a beloved classic is actually, wait for it, overrated!

there was an interview on NPR the other day with one of Lee's close friends who visits her in her assisted living facility and he said she has no diminished mental facility, but she is almost blind. But he doubted that she could be manipulated into signing anything. Who knows.

The Guardian's arts coverage has gotten so random lately (for inst "reviewer" of Scientology doc decides that victimization by C of S=comedy), that I'm taking indefinite leave from their thoughtful clickbait.

Sarah C doesn't overdo on her opinion and says she is looking forward to the bk anyway so considering this is The Guardian it wasn't too bad.

Thanks! I'm sure they'll lure me back to clickpieces one of these days.

in my driver's ed class we were shown the car crash parts of FACES OF DEATH
― LIKE If you are against racism (omar little), Friday, February 6, 2015 3:04 AM

that sounds kinda screwed up! but i've never seen that movie myself

it's like the worst benny hill episode ever

Better than DEATH OF FACES---worst Behind The Music-based TV movie ever.

Harper Lee to nosey journalist: "Go away!"

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/05/harper-lee-journalist-go-away-to-kill-a-mockingbird-sequel-go-set-a-watchman?CMP=fb_us

at least he got an autograph

uhh...

"Ms. Lee — known to many as Nelle, her legal first name — had a stroke in 2007 and has severe hearing and vision problems. But friends who visit her regularly say she can communicate well and hold lengthy conversations if visitors yell in her ear or write questions down for her to read under a special machine. (A black marker is kept in her room for this purpose.)"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/arts/artsspecial/harper-lees-ability-to-consent-to-new-book-continues-to-be-questioned.html?_r=0

the whole thing is depressing

yeah, even if she turns out to be somewhat "coherent" (as they say) i highly doubt she would have OK'd the release of this book without some undue pressure from people who stand to make $$ from it. sad.

that reporter's Harper Lee biography painted a picture of someone who wouldn't do something like this. And she seemed pretty leery of the entire publishing industry in that book, too.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/13/living/feat-harper-lee-kill-a-mockingbird-elder-abuse/index.html

that settles that?

had to LOL at this in the times story:

The writer Marja Mills, who lived next to the Lee sisters in Monroeville for about 18 months beginning in the fall of 2004 and wrote a book about the experience, “The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee,”

it gets the point across i suppose but jesus what a witless title

To Kill an Albatross? The 800 Pound Mockingbird? The Mockingbird in the Room? Mockingbird is the Word?

Bird Up?

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/books/harper-lee-go-set-a-watchman-may-have-been-found-earlier-than-thought.html

plot thickens, again

whole situ is v weird & confusing (at least to me)

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/review-harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-gives-atticus-finch-a-dark-side.html?_r=0

Wtf

Shockingly, in Ms. Lee’s long-awaited novel, “Go Set a Watchman” (due out Tuesday), Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like “The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Or asks his daughter: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?”

Apparently this is more of an early draft of Mockingbird than a sequel. This Atticus is like a prototype. Very weird it's being published

Scout is shocked to find, during her trip home, that her beloved father, who taught her everything she knows about fairness and compassion, has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion. How could the saintly Atticus — described early in the book in much the same terms as he is in “Mockingbird” — suddenly emerge as a bigot? Suggestions about changing times and the polarizing effects of the civil rights movement seem insufficient when it comes to explaining such a radical change, and the reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed.

closest to in i've been yet

two friends in college used to call me Patticus Finch

i feel ambivalent about this now

Apparently this is more of an early draft of Mockingbird than a sequel. This Atticus is like a prototype. Very weird it's being published

welcome to February 2015

http://i.imgur.com/Fej5kQd.jpg

My wife read that Laura Ingalls Wilder "Pioneer Girl" book, which is essentially an early draft of what became "Little House on the Prairie," and she found it very rewarding. They probably should have done something like that here. Rather than release it with any fanfare just snuck it out as an early draft of "Mockingbird." Also, they should have waited for Lee to be dead.

Good essay:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/27/sweet-home-alabama

(Lee's) Southernness, however much it is now the material of cliché, is still the most pleasing thing about the book—the kind of easy, Agee and McCullers Southernness (as against Tennessee Williams’s more Gothic version) that was as much a part of the postwar American novel as Jewishness, of which it was the alternative construction. Jews (in Bellow, Malamud, early Roth) were urban, worried, and compellingly neurotic; Southerners (in Capote, McCullers, Harper Lee) were rural, carefree, and absolutely crazy. As always with such things, neither construction makes sense unless you see the missing central panel that both are reacting to: the Wasp ascendancy, only just about to be called so—that average American whiteness from which Southern drinking and Jewish schmalz alike could seem welcome refuges.

RIP

never read the new one but it's hard to overstate the impact that mockingbird had on american culture

wait really?

aw man :(

RIP

:(

rip harper

what a fiasco with go set a watchman. such a blemish, horrible to see her be taken advantage of like that

my son's 7th grade English class just did a whole multi-week segment on To Kill A Mockingbird and connections to the civil rights movement.