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View Full Version : 'To Kill A Mockingbird' Author Harper Lee Is Publishing A Second Novel



Dom Heffner
02-03-2015, 11:31 AM
This may be the best news of my life. I"ll own it the second it is available after crying like a teenager that just met Harry Styles.


Harper Lee, the author of the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, will publish a second book this summer. Go Set a Watchman was completed in the 1950s, but set aside by the writer, who went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for the only novel she ever published.

Lee's publisher, Harper, issued a statement this morning, in which the author said:

I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn’t realized 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.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/03/harper-lee-novel_n_6603994.html

westofyou
02-03-2015, 12:09 PM
Very excited as well

Dom Heffner
02-03-2015, 12:58 PM
If I am reading that correctly- it seems as though this was the original story that had flashbacks of Scout's childhood and the editor told her to write that story instead of the adult Scout story.

So instead of a cheesy sequel playing on our attachments, this should seem pretty authentic.

I'm not kidding I'm going to cry.

marcshoe
02-03-2015, 01:08 PM
Harper Lee publishing a second book.

Ralph Nader driving a Corvair.

Paul McCartney joining the Stones.

Martin Luther being named a Catholic Saint.

What happens next?

The Cubs winning a World Series.

Nah, nothing that ridiculous.

dabvu2498
02-03-2015, 05:54 PM
I'm going to read it, no doubt.

But I wonder why.

TKAM is like the ultimate micdrop. She's 24, writes literally The Great American Novel, maybe the best book ever written in English, then disappears.

Until she's 88. It's just somewhat strange. Not being critical or anything. Just so curious.

Razor Shines
02-03-2015, 09:23 PM
Well there is some controversy. I hate to read this.

From the Jezebel article.


Tonja Carter, Harper Lee's attorney since Alice Lee retired at the age of 100, acknowledges that the author—who was left forgetful and nearly blind and deaf after a stroke in 2007—often doesn't understand the contracts that she signs. "Lee has a history of signing whatever's put in front of her, apparently sometimes with Carter's advice," Gawker reported last July.

http://jezebel.com/be-suspicious-of-the-new-harper-lee-novel-1683488258

Dom Heffner
02-03-2015, 10:18 PM
I'm going to read it, no doubt.

But I wonder why.

TKAM is like the ultimate micdrop. She's 24, writes literally The Great American Novel, maybe the best book ever written in English, then disappears.

Until she's 88. It's just somewhat strange. Not being critical or anything. Just so curious.

Her attorney found it attached to a draft of TKAM. Strange indeed. It won't be super, most likely, it hasn't been edited.

I'll still read it- if I get 10% the happiness, I'm in.

dabvu2498
02-03-2015, 10:28 PM
There is a Lee biographer who is claiming that the novel will be (at least somewhat) authentic:


The news also proves what Shields discovered while researching her life: Lee had written another book.

“I feel vindicated," Shields said. "I’ve been saying that this novel exists since 2006. I found correspondence at Columbia University between Harper Lee and her agent, Annie Laurie Williams, about this book. The title refers to the scene when Atticus is outside the courthouse defending against vigilante justice. He’s the watchman.”

The discussion of "Watchman" comes up between Harper and her agent for a bit in the mid-1950s, Shields said, but then it disappears from the correspondence. "The next reference is to ‘Atticus,' " he said. “I thought it ["Watchman"] died in her hands. Turns out it was set 20 years after, when Scout returns home.”


http://www.ibtimes.com/why-harper-lee-publishing-go-set-watchman-2015-mockingbird-biographer-offers-theory-1804252

Kingspoint
02-04-2015, 10:39 AM
Very interesting. I imagine all of us here have our own hard copy.

It does look like her dementia is being exploited, though. Sad.

Just watched it again the other day. Can't get enough of it.

marcshoe
02-04-2015, 11:49 AM
My first thought was that I wish this would have happened while my great-grandmother was still alive. She read constantly, and it was her favorite book. I think I first read her copy.

Kingspoint
02-04-2015, 01:32 PM
Reminds me of when the second volume of Lewis & Clark Journals were discovered in a trunk in an attic in St. Louis ten years ago. There were always suspicions that one existed, but there was never any hard proof.

Over the years, Harper Lee was asked repeatedly why she never produced another novel and her answers always suggested that she was done.

Boston Red
02-04-2015, 01:41 PM
When I read about this story yesterday, I understood this book to essentially be the first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird, but the publisher wanted her to write the story from a different perspective (Scout's). So I'm not sure if this is going to be an entirely different book or more along the lines of a different version of To Kill a Mockingbird. Either is fine with me, though.

Kingspoint
02-04-2015, 01:42 PM
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_C4Kb66CsbO8/SNvrKEVWVTI/AAAAAAAAAFY/WMmcCEjEGak/s320/Cigar+Box.jpg


http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ZpB5wUXYJNA/U20pvEMuX8I/AAAAAAAAIU0/_pY0LP-lgzQ/68.-Standing-guard-over-his-client_t.jpg?imgmax=800

Kingspoint
02-04-2015, 01:48 PM
http://lisavandamme.com/

One of my favorite days of every year in 7th grade literature is the day I teach the “mob” scene in To Kill a Mockingbird. In this scene, a mob has gathered outside the jailhouse, ready to take the law into their own hands and lynch the man being held there. And all that stands in their way is Atticus, the man’s feeble, old lawyer, who knows they are coming, and will do the little that is in his power to stop them. Meanwhile, Atticus’s children, Jem and Scout, fearful of what might be bringing their father away in the middle of the night, have followed him to the jail, and come upon this scene.

cincinnati chili
02-08-2015, 01:10 PM
Stealing this from someone in my facebook network: HARPER LEE: MY NEW PROCRASTINATION HERO."

Anybody ever follow the rumor that Truman Capote actually wrote TKAM?

Dom Heffner
02-08-2015, 01:54 PM
Stealing this from someone in my facebook network: HARPER LEE: MY NEW PROCRASTINATION HERO."

Anybody ever follow the rumor that Truman Capote actually wrote TKAM?

I can't imagine it to be true...he was so outspoken, yet he never made the claim himself.

They did find a letter he wrote to his aunt before publication:


Dated July 1959, a year before the novel was published, he told his aunt that Lee had ‘showed me as much of the book as she’d written and I liked it very much. She has real talent.'

He was petty, jealous of the attention she received.

I don't buy it one bit.

bucksfan2
02-11-2015, 11:21 AM
Talking about this new book on NPR right now.

dabvu2498
07-25-2015, 06:26 AM
Who else read it?

Awful.

KronoRed
07-25-2015, 06:50 AM
There's something creepy about this whole thing, I doubt very much this book was ever supposed to see the light.

Dom Heffner
07-25-2015, 08:43 AM
I decided not to read it.

They sort of sold it as a sequel. It's a rough draft of a story that led to Mockingbird.

Pass.

Donder
07-25-2015, 05:26 PM
I read it and enjoyed it. The more you can disconnect the two and let Go Set a Watchman stand on its own, the more you'll probably enjoy it.

It's not half the book To Kill a Mockingbird is, though. If that's your standard for comparison you'll be disappointed.

Redsfaithful
07-25-2015, 09:43 PM
I don't believe Harper Lee wanted it published. I think she has dementia now and people are taking advantage of her, and I don't really feel like giving my money to that sort of thing. For all the good it'll do.

Eric from NC
07-25-2015, 10:12 PM
I don't believe Harper Lee wanted it published. I think she has dementia now and people are taking advantage of her, and I don't really feel like giving my money to that sort of thing. For all the good it'll do.

That was my feeling especially after reading the below WA Post article. I really enjoyed the article they filled in the background on Harper Lee. I never knew Truman Capote was Scout's best friend from next door.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/to-shill-a-mockingbird-how-the-discovery-of-a-manuscript-became-harper-lees-new-novel/2015/02/16/48656f76-b3b9-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html