A racist Atticus is far more realistic for his time and place than a non-racist Atticus.
Will you read it, monstro?
Yes, I probably will. Will you?
I can believe he’d hold attitudes that were progressive for his time but backward/racist by our standards. But to start attending Klan meetings seems extreme.
Yes, I ordered it yesterday from Amazon. I am interested to see the differences. I don’t have confidence in book reviews.
The first draft of Star Wars does not resemble the filmed version.
I remember an older controversy – the supposition that Harper Lee didn’t write Mockingbird, and was simply ghost writing for something Truman Capote didn’t want published under his name. Hopefully, this novel will put those rumors to rest completely, even if there’s some suspicion Harper Lee didn’t want it published. Face it, it would have been published after her death anyway, she might as well bask in some glory, and pay some bills while she’s alive.
Anyway, I’ve read an excerpt from the first chapter online, and I’m completely hooked. It appears to be a very smart Southern Gothic novel.
The reviewer on NPR this morning called into question the “story” that this novel was actually written prior. She says that there are so many strong references to the supposedly earlier story that it reads more like a poorly written sequel.
Do we really, really know which novel was written first?
You start to get into moon landing hoax territory here …
a) Why would it matter?
b) The publisher said and editor have both said the TSaW came first (although her agent apparently though it was more of a draft for TKaM). Of course it could all be an elaborate cover-up …
c) If you are writing a prequel and you’ve made references to past events, yeah your prequel will very likely contain contain the events referred to in the first book … just deepened and put into a context and experience that might be a bit different than how they are recalled years later.
But she never enjoyed basking in the glory of Mockingbird–she didn’t give interviews, tour, etc., and she doesn’t need the money.
Just because she didn’t want published doesn’t mean she has to destroy it. Do you really think [random famous author] destroys every manuscript he/she writes just to make sure someone doesn’t publish it without their consent?
Always is an awfully strong word. No, the ones that are published posthumously come out sooner or later, all the rest never see the light of day and you never know they exist. I’m sure there’s thousands of dead authors with tens of thousands of unpublished books that no one will ever get the chance to read. If [scans bookshelf] Carl Hiaasen died right now and we never saw another book from him, it doesn’t mean he didn’t have three more sitting on his desk waiting to go to the publisher that his widow and editor can put some finishing touches on and release. They might, they might just toss them too.
Regarding this book, like I said earlier, we’ll never know. If she wrote it, the publisher rejected it, Mockingbird was published, she locked Watchman in a safety deposit box and talked about how “one book is good enough” [so far, the official story], and after she died it was found, I’m sure it would be printed.
OTOH, if her attorney has had it for the last few years, begging her to take it to the publisher and she’s been saying no and died without ever signing over the rights, then it might we might not ever read it. Especially since her friends would be saying she didn’t want it published and her family would probably own it. Whether the owner of the manuscript, after her death, printed it, I don’t know.
What bills? She lives in a nursing home and is worth 35 million dollars.
How old is the narrator in Mockingbird? It’s not narrated by 6-year-old Scout, right?
It’s the adult Jean Louise looking back on her childhood. I haven’t read Watchman yet, but I’m wondering if the Mockingbird narrator is older or younger than the Jean Louise of Watchman. If older, perhaps looking back with a nostalgia she longs for after the disillusionment she feels during her 1950s visit home. If younger, still carrying a degree of hero worship for Atticus.