Go Set a Watchman

(Paperback)

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From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. _________________ A landmark new novel from Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece To Kill a Mockingbird. Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch - 'Scout' - returns home from New York City to visit her ageing father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past - a journey that can be guided only by one's own conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humour and effortless precision - a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context and new meaning to a classic.

Reviews

A new work, and a pleasure, revelation and genuine literary eventGo Set a Watchman shakes the settled view of both an author and her novelThis publication intensifies the regret that Harper Lee published so little. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *
Go Set a Watchman is the more radical, ambitious and politicised of the two novels Lee has now publishedIt has contemporary relevance where Mockingbird is safely sealed off as a piece of American historyIt does not undermine Mockingbird but it makes a reassessment of that story absolutely necessaryIt is a book of enormous literary interestBeguiling and distinctive, and reminiscent of MockingbirdGo Set a Watchman cant be dismissed as literary scraps from Lees imagination. It has too much integrity for that. -- Arifa Akbar * Independent *
More edgy and thought provoking [than To Kill a Mockingbird] It has a power to it beyond being a mere historical curio or more lit crit material for Harper Lee studies Eccentric characters are brightly drawn. There is Lees trademark warmth, some droll lines and the sense of place and time is strong[It has] a surprisingly provocative message dont airily dismiss the prejudices of others, try to understand them. -- Robbie Millen * The Times *
The flashes of lyrical genius and ability to evoke the intensity of childhood play that come to fruition in To Kill a Mockingbird are in evidenceIts nowhere near the novel Mockingbird is. It is much better than thatWhat Watchman tells us, and tells us rather powerfully, is that racism is not confined to people who are so clearly not like usWatchman is for grown-ups. It asks serious questions about what racism is. And it comes at a time when American desperately needs a grown-up conversation about race. -- Erica Wagner * New Statesman *
Im happy to report that most of the caveats and conspiracy theories surrounding Go Set a Watchman melt away as you read the opening chapters and reacquaint yourself with that beguiling Harper Lee narrative style warm, sardonic, amused by male folly and social pretension, wryly funny, a sassy Southern voice, Mark Twain with a dash of Katharine Hepburn. -- John Walsh * Sunday Times *
We have travelled into the past and returned to find that our present is not quite the same as we left it. Atticus Finch will never again be the white knight we once thought him. And yet the mockingbird still sings no longer a song of innocence, but maybe one of experience; a song that combines sorrow, forgiveness and, ultimately, a kind of hope. -- Joanne Harris * Daily Mail *
There are some flashes of geniusMy favourite scene is at a coffee, where our rebellious Scout must make small talk with a bunch of married former acquaintances whom she deliberately hasnt seen since school. Lees prcis of their vapid conversation is hilarious, feminist and wickedly modern. -- Katy Guest * Independent on Sunday *
Go Set A Watchman is a powerful and moving novel The opening chapters are slow and languorous, beautifully setting the scene. Lees unadorned style is lit up by the occasional sparkling metaphor. -- Vanessa Berridge * Daily Express *
A literary masterpiece, and an enjoyable one at that. -- Natasha Harding * Sun *
Equally significant today, and imbued with Lees wisdom, humanity and humour. -- Justine East * Independent *

Author Bio

Harper Lee was born in 1926 in Monroeville, Alabama. She is the author of the acclaimed To Kill a Mockingbird, originally published in 1960, and Go Set a Watchman, published in July 2015. Ms. Lee received the Pulitzer Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and numerous other literary awards and honors. She died on February 19, 2016.