Fifty-five years after the initial release of the famous To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee comes its sequel Go Set a Watchman. It was actually written before TKAM, but her publisher convinced Lee to write the story from a child's perspective. It is being released this summer exactly as Lee initially intended, with no revisions. The novel features everyone's favorite heroine, Jean Louise Finch or "Scout," coming back to visit her old man Atticus after experiencing and finding out how the world differs from her small southern hometown. This novel will include some of TKAM's characters and settings. The original manuscript was believed to have been long lost and forgotten for all these years and was only located by accident in the past three months.
The story, first published in 1960, is raw and emotional and deals with hatred and prejudice during the Great Depression. While America has taken huge steps towards equality, issues are still being fought over today. This month is Black History Month so it is especially important to celebrate how far our country has come and also address the shortcomings that remain. Hopefully, the novel will tackle many of the problems brought up in the first book. In the new book, will Scout learn how ahead of his time Atticus was and begin to battle racists alongside her father? Will seeing how the rest of the country treats African Americans shape her own views and opinions about how badly they are treated in her hometown? Will Maycomb, the town in Alabama that was Scout's home, adapt to the moving times? Or will Scout come home unchanged, prejudice as ever?
This will be Harper Lee's first public writing released since TKAM. She is currently deaf and almost blind, leaving most of the press up to her attorney and publisher, HarperCollins. All you To Kill a Mockingbird fans get your popcorn and ham costumes ready for what we have been waiting to read for decades!