More than 50 years after “To Kill a Mockingbird” was released, Harper Lee is publishing her second novel. Go Set a Watchman, which is slated for a July 2015 release, features Scout returning home as an adult.  According to the publisher:

“Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus,” the publisher said in an announcement to the AP. “She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.”

Per a statement released to AP, Lee says this is a book she wrote before “To Kill a Mockingbird“.

“In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called `Go Set a Watchman,'” the 88-year-old Lee said in a statement issued by Harper. “It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became `To Kill a Mockingbird’) from the point of view of the young Scout.

“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.”

It’ll be interesting to see how this novel is received. What are your thoughts? 

 

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