Posted on 07/13/2015 9:20:33 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Two startling revelations about long-hidden work by "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee have stunned readers awaiting Tuesday's release of her new book, "Go Set a Watchman."
Lee's attorney, Tonja Carter, hinted Monday in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that the reclusive author may have written a third novel.
Carter wrote that she recently examined the contents of a safe-deposit box in Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama, and saw the manuscript for "Watchman" lying "underneath a stack of a significant number of pages of another typed text."
"Was it an earlier draft of 'Watchman,' or of 'Mockingbird,' or even, as early correspondence indicates it might be, a third book bridging the two? I don't know," Carter said. Experts, under direction from Lee, will be asked in the coming months to authenticate the pages, she said.
This disclosure comes on the heels of early reviews of "Watchman," published over the weekend, indicating that "Mockingbird's" principled lawyer Atticus Finch, who in that book defended a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman, has developed racist views.
Set 20 years after "Mockingbird," "Watchman" finds Scout Finch returning to her fictional Maycomb, Alabama, hometown in the 1950s from New York to find with dismay that her father has attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting and rails against desegregation.
The revised portrait of Atticus has horrified many fans of "Mockingbird," as it had been left to their imaginations to continue the story.
In the 55 years since its release, the 1960 novel has become a staple of high school reading lists and one of the most beloved books in American literature. The Academy Award-winning 1962 film, with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, only added to its legacy.
Until this week, "Mockingbird" remained Lee's only published novel.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
I found one too!
Getting into the realm of hoaxes now.
Ya’ think they might just be trying to sell a book??
I don’t know why you’d say that.
Atticus couldn’t help it. It was in his DNA. Just ask Barry.
*snort*
May have written? Did she or didn’t she? If the author herself is not sure, then she probably did not write it.
Maybe yes, if she now has a disability that affects the memory, such as Alzheimers. Even in that case, there should be plenty of drafts around that led up to this ‘surprise’ book.
Her literary agent’s son and grandson’s will keep finding “lost” manuscripts!
Unlikely there is a third book, but even more unlikely that there would have been drafts around. Lee was traumatized, not in a “I can’t go on living” way but still traumatized, by her sudden and near universal praise for her book. She stayed busy in the literary world, but could not bring herself to write again.
So even if she did write, it likely would have been a single draft that she kept out of view from anyone else. Like Emily Dickenson with her poems. Only after her passing was the volume and quality of her work revealed.
I read the book in high school back in the days when we read real books, not ebooks. Honestly, I was into Arthur C. Clarke, Asimov and Heinlein so I was not too impressed with Mockingbird. As I recall it was OK, but not one of my favorites by any stretch. As I recall it seemed a little preachy and stilted.
Maybe I am just too much like Atticus Finch and not so much like Scout.
I have read hundreds, nay, thousands of books since those dark days of the 50s-60s and I can honestly say that Mockingbird doesn’t crack my top 10, probably not even my top 50.
So in summation, who cares if there are two additional unknown, mediocre books?
This is fun.
To Kill A Mockingbird is a real touchstone for the Liberals.
Watch what happens when they get over the initial shock.
“This book is no good. It doesn’t support our ideals!”
Harper Lee can’t write another book because Truman Capote is still dead.
They'll be printed on Dukes of Hazzard stationery.
Harper Lee’s done an “In Cold Blood” on Atticus.
The Alabama Bar had put up a plaque to Atticus in front of the old courthouse in Monroeville Al (her hometown).
Over/under how long it lasts?
Liberals are upset that the guy turns out to be a racist in the novel. I wonder what the 3rd novel will make him be?
Truman Capote is still dead.
If Truman Capote had married Doty Goodman,
would she have become Doty Capote???
Inquiring minds want to know...
No....thank-you.
I only bet on lawyers when there’s a race after a wallet falls to the ground.
Then I bet on the sneakiest one and I always lose because it’s a tie.
It's a nice plaque.
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