‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ author Harper Lee to publish second novel

The new novel Go Set a Watchman Harper Lee’s first for 55 years, shows Scout as an adult woman and, in the author’s eyes, is “a pretty decent effort.”

It could be the most surprising follow-up in publishing history. Harper Lee, who authored To Kill a Mockingbird before going silent for 55 years, is about to explain what happened next.

The literary community was taken aback when 88-year-old Lee revealed that her second book which will revisit Scout and Atticus Finch, will be published this summer.

In a modest manner she also called it “a pretty decent effort.”

Go Set a Watchman takes place 20 years after To Kill a Mockingbird, during the Civil Rights period, when the idealistic Scout has grown up. Her lawyer father and his is still alive. So she comes to their hometown of Maycomb Alabama to see him.

It turns out that Lee did not write the book, despite having more than 50 years to do so.

Go Set a Watchman was written before To Kill a Mockingbird. It was written by her as the first Scout narrative in the 1950s. However, Lee’s editor saw the character’s childhood flashbacks and convinced her to write about a young Scout instead.

The Go Set a Watchman manuscript was set aside by Lee, who thought it was lost until recently when she was “surprised and delighted” to hear it had been located.

After being released in July 1960, To Kill A Mockingbird received the Pulitzer Prize, and Gregory Peck’s performance in the 1962 film adaptation earned him an Oscar. Lee went on to become the most well-known literary one-hit wonder in history after that.

Although she was never a strangely reclusive person in the style of her contemporary, J.D. Salinger, she has spent the intervening years protecting her privacy.

She occasionally appeared in public and praised the virtues of classic literature in an open letter to Oprah Winfrey that she penned in 2006.

“Even though everyone around me seems to have a laptop, a phone, an iPod, and empty minds, I continue to walk around with books in an abundant society.” I don’t need instant information. I like to go through library stacks because I recall what I’ve worked hard to study,” the writer stated.

“Can you imagine curling up in bed to read a computer?” she inquired. Furthermore, “some things belong on soft pages, not cold metal.”

A two million copy first print run of the 304-page book is planned for publication.

“In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called Go Set a Watchman,” Lee stated in a statement made public by her publisher.

“It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort.

“My editor convinced me to write a novel (which eventually became To Kill a Mockingbird) from the perspective of the young Scout after she was moved by the memories of Scout’s early years.

Since I was a novice writer, I followed instructions. When my great friend and lawyer Tonja Carter found the original book, I was astonished and happy since I had no idea it had survived.

“I discussed it with a few trusted individuals after giving it a lot of consideration and hesitation, and I was happy to hear that they believed it should be published. The fact that this will finally be published after all these years humbles and astounds me.”

According to the publisher, Carter discovered the manuscript “at a secure location where it had been affixed to an original typescript of To Kill A Mockingbird.”

The trial that was the focus of the first narrative has left a mark on both the father and the daughter, according to a note on the storyline of the current book.

As she tries to comprehend her father’s perspective on society and her own sentiments about the town where she was born and raised, Scout “returns to Maycomb and is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political.”

Harper’s Jonathan Burnham, who represents Lee, remarked, “This is a remarkable literary event.”The many readers and admirers of To Kill a Mockingbird have received an incredible gift with the discovery of Go Set a Watchman, which was undiscovered until recently.

A father and daughter’s relationship and the 1950s racial tensions in a small Alabama town are the subjects of this gripping and ultimately poignant story.