Go Set a Watchman

Go Set a Watchman, by Harper Lee

I debated whether to read Go Set a Watchman for quite some time, but finally curiosity got the best of me! It's worth reading if only to explore this progression of a writer and a book, as it preceded To Kill a Mockingbird.

What I liked about it:

• Scout, or Jean Louise, is a grown woman. And she is a crusty, opinionated, and stubborn one at that.
  
• As one reviewer noted, Go Set a Watchman is not the book we wanted about race...but it was the book we need. Others have said Atticus was always a racist.
  
• The writing, at times, was beautiful...when it was not meandering.
  
• It showed a slice of history, and perhaps a more realistic one, in the South during that era.

What I didn't like about it:

• Oh, the meandering! Lee often goes off on various flashbacks, and I found myself questioning when we would get back to the main story. Not a good sign, and it reflects the need for the novel to be polished...which it was by the time To Kill a Mockingbird was published.
  
• Some characters are mere shadows (Jem and Dill) of their evolved selves. I'm not sure why she even included them in this draft, as they appear only as memory fragments.
  
• Many reviews discuss Atticus' racism while ignoring Jean Louise's own racism. Perhaps she wasn't as flawed as Atticus, but she was no saint. As "the book we need," it is a better representation of the south during this era than To Kill a Mockingbird, because it showed the many layers of racism. Yes, Atticus and Jean Louise's love interest Hank were worse, but Scout too was racist. Although Jean Louise was horrified by the KKK and its ilk, she was just as horrified by school segregation and interracial marriage.  

I'm glad I read it if only because I'm a curious reader and wanted to form my own opinion (similar to why I read Twilight). But it's easy to see why Harper Lee's first editor advised her to take a different tack. 

Ultimately, this book disappoints because Jean Louise is an old-school Southerner through and through, in spite of the higher hopes the reader might have in the beginning and middle of the novel. As Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times, "The difference is that Mockingbird suggested that we should have compassion for outsiders like Boo and Tom Robinson, while Watchman asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus."

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

First of all, Charles J. Shields deserves kudos for tackling such an elusive subject. This is not an authorized biography of Nelle Harper Lee, because of course Lee would not respond to any of Shields' many requests for interviews or information.

He admits in his introduction that he had to rely heavily on the internet, library archives, and unorthodox methods (such as pretending to be one of Lee's college alums and obtaining a mailing list of her classmates). Consequently, I found myself pondering at some of his editorial choices and questioning why he included some of what he did. At times, it seemed like filler. As a result, as far as biographies go, I've read better.

Given the fact that we know so little about Lee's life and motivations, however, this book is a great addition to the Mockingbird canon. Shields, a former English teacher, writes extensively about Lee's friendship with Truman Capote and her childhood in Alabama. The only Capote work I've read is In Cold Blood, although I wasn't aware at the time that Lee assisted him so extensively in the research and writing (and did not receive any credit...apparently because he was envious of Lee's award of the Pulitzer prize).

Shields speculates about Lee's strained relationship with her mother and the fact that she never wrote another book. Again, he must rely on word of mouth, news articles and rare interviews, and guesswork. As a result, I found myself questioning the accuracy. I thought it was tacky and disrespectful that he revealed the name of the Monroeville, Alabama, restaurant where Lee and her sister Alice enjoy eating on a regular basis. We all know she is a woman who values her privacy.

In the end, this book is a fond remembrance of Lee--clearly, Shields has immense respect for his subject. She seemed exceedingly uncomfortable with the trappings of fame and the expectations of writers (to continue to produce). But Shields concludes that Lee has come to peace with her life. Soon after To Kill a Mockingbird was published, Lee wrote to friends, "People who have made peace with themselves are the people I admire most in the world." Shields, too, had to make peace with the lack of his personal insight about Lee, because of her reclusiveness.