Harper Lee Writes “Again”

In those games where someone asks you “If you only had one movie to see for the rest of your life what would it be?”…my answer is always the same…”To Kill A Mockingbird”.  And the same kind of question in the game of “What is your favorite novel?” brings the same answer from me everytime…”To Kill A Mocking Bird”.Harper Lee only wrote one book to the best of anyone’s knowledge.  It was, and still is, a HUIGE hit. If you are only writing one book you could say she hit the ball right out of the park with “To Kill A Mockingbird”. It won the coveted Pulizter Prize.  Now as intriquing and timeless as it was when it was first published, it is just as good a read now, and has over the years become required reading for school children.  And for good reason.  To my mind it is as close to perfection as a book could be.

The 1962 movie is equally revered because unlike so many films made from novels, it does not depart from Harper Lee’s original story even a smidgen.  The story, told through the eyes of the character of Jean Louise Finch, or Scout, as she is commonly called, a young child growing up during the depression in rural Alabama, is just the same in the film as it is in the book.  If by some amazing chance you have never seen the movie, don’t waste another minute in getting it and watching.

And if you have never read the book, now would be a good time to get it and cozy up for a fabulous read.

Don’t wait too long because it has just been announced that a “misplaced” manuscript that the 88 year old Miss Lee actually wrote prior to “To Kill A Mockingbird” has been found and will be published this July!

The title of this new novel is “Go Set a Watchman”.  It was completed in the mid-1950s, in the midst of the civil rights movement and takes place 20 years after “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Though it’s technically a sequel to the story of “To Kill A Mockingbird” , Ms. Lee actually wrote “Go Set a Watchman” first.  The story takes place in the same fictional town, Maycomb, Alabama, and is told as Scout Finch, now grown, returns to visit her father, Atticus.

According to an article in the New York Times:

“Ms. Lee said in a statement released by her publisher that her editor at the time was taken with Scout’s childhood flashbacks, and told her to write a different novel from Scout’s perspective.”

‘I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told,’ Ms. Lee, 88, a native of Monroeville, Ala., said in the statement.

Ms. Lee never published another novel, despite pleas and prodding from readers and the literary establishment. She settled into a reclusive life and has rarely given interviews since the 1960s. She set the earlier book aside, and thought the draft had been lost or destroyed. Then last fall, her friend and lawyer, Tonja Carter, discovered the manuscript of “Go Set a Watchman” in what Ms. Lee said was “a secure location,” attached to an original typescript of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

‘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,’ Ms. Lee said in a statement.”

The new novel has been called “a compelling and ultimately moving narrative about a father and a daughter’s relationship, and the life of a small Alabama town living through the racial tensions of the 1950s.”

I, for one, can’t wait to visit again with my dear childhood friend Scout Finch.  Wonderful books and stories can only enrich our lives and surely bring so much joy and abundance 🙂