I should probably leave it to Steven Lubet, the faculty lounge's resident expert on Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird to discuss this.... The internets are lighting up right now with the announcement that a novel written by Harper Lee before To Kill a Mockingbird is set for publication this July. The novel is called Go Set a Watchman. It deals with Scout as an adult and is set in the 1950s -- some years after the plot of To Kill a Mockingbird. Actually, it was this novel that led to Mockingbird when an editor, intrigued by flashbacks to Scout's early life in Go Set a Watchman suggested that Lee write a novel about Scout's early life. Lee thought the novel was lost, though a copy was recently found by her lawyer, apparently attached to a manuscript of Mockingbird.
I'm going to be mighty interested in this -- for all sorts of reasons. First, I'll be interested in the amount of law there -- and particularly whether there are the kinds of issues raised by Mockingbird, where the focus on civil rights advocacy may have overshadowed the efforts to free Tom Robinson. If there's any significant amount of law in the novel, there's going to be a feeding frenzy among professional responsibility, trial advocacy, civil rights, and critical race scholars. Second, I'm going to be interested in seeing how the depictions of the civil rights movement appear and what Lee makes of the generational divide between Scout and her father and whoever else populates the novel.
I was talking recently with one of my colleagues about Tony Amsterdam's legendary memo from the mid-1970s about the future of challenges to the death penalty and how many of those challenges he accurately forecast. It'll be exciting to see how the views that Lee lays out in the novel match up with our understanding of those difficult -- but still optimistic years -- and also how they match up with our current understandings of the options and challenges of race and equality today.
Ladies and Gentlemen, start your word processors. The image is of the Monroe County Courthouse in Harper Lee's hometown of Monroeville, Alabama. It's from our friends at wikipedia.
Update: Richard McAdams speculates on how our view of Atticus Finch may change when we view him in the setting of the 1950s rather than the 1930s at Huffington Post.
I appreciate the shout-out, Al, but I plan to wait and see along with everyone else.
SL
Posted by: Steve L. | February 03, 2015 at 12:25 PM
I got to meet Harper Lee at a luncheon at the University of Alabama my senior year. She said I didn't look old enough to be out of grade school. She could of at least added the customary "bless your heart."
Posted by: Derek Tokaz | February 03, 2015 at 09:39 PM
Derek, when did you graduate from Alabama? I'm guessing we were there at the same time.
Posted by: Al Brophy | February 04, 2015 at 06:29 AM
Class of 2005. I started the same year as the 6 game Iron Bowl drought. I apologize for that.
Posted by: Derek Tokaz | February 05, 2015 at 10:40 AM
We were there at the same time. Those were tough times for football, for sure.
I remember that Harper Lee spoke or at least met with students a few times in my early years there. I think 2005 must have been close to the end of her visits to the capstone. Might even have been the last.
Posted by: Al Brophy | February 05, 2015 at 11:33 AM
Hey Al, Interesting story this morning on NPR on the question of whether Lee really wants this manuscript to be published.
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/04/383854514/harper-lees-friend-says-author-is-hard-of-hearing-sound-of-mind
Posted by: Dan Joyner | February 05, 2015 at 02:55 PM
Dan. Thanks for the link to Wayne Flynt's interview on NPR about Watchman. I hadn't heard it.
Flynt, who is probably the leading historian of Twentieth century Alabama, said he visited her the day before the new novel was announced and she didn't talk about it, which is sort of surprising. And I'd think somewhat inconsistent with his statement that she has mental capacity to consent to the publication. But then again, maybe that's consistent with Ms. Lee's well-known interest in maintaining her privacy.
This link reminded me of an NPR story from a few years back where Flynt commented on a rumor that Truman Capote rather than Harper Lee had written Mockingbird. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244492
The occasion of the interview was the discovery of a letter from Capote to a family member that praised the novel but didn't claim authorship, or even credit for helping write or edit the novel. Flynt also makes the important point that Lee's voice and Capote's are quite different. I suspect that this new novel will further put to rest the Capote rumor.
Posted by: Al Brophy | February 06, 2015 at 08:01 AM