In First Chapter of Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman,’ Sprouts With Deep Roots

International New York Times | 10 July 2015

“She had turned from an overalled, fractious, gun-slinging creature into a reasonable facsimile of a human being.”

More than 55 years after readers fell under the spell of the feisty tomboy Jean Louise “Scout” Finch in Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the character has been resurrected — as a more mature and outwardly civilized, but still rebellious, young woman — in “Go Set a Watchman,” an unexpected second novel by Ms. Lee.

The first chapter of the new book, which was published by The Wall Street Journal and by The Guardian on Friday, continues the story of Scout and her father, Atticus, about 20 years after the action in “To Kill a Mockingbird.” While the novel shares literary DNA with Ms. Lee’s famous debut — the same wry humor, biting banter and finely drawn characters flicker throughout — this is clearly a different story. It is narrated in the third person, from the perspective of Jean Louise (who has outgrown the nickname Scout, it seems), and the heroine, and the times, have changed.

In the opening passages, Jean Louise is in her 20s, taking a train to Alabama from New York. She is returning home to Maycomb to visit Atticus, now 72, who refuses to retire from his law practice despite his age and infirmity.

She expects Atticus to meet her at the train station, but a young man greets her instead: “He grabbed her in a bear hug, put her from him, kissed her hard on the mouth, then kissed her gently.”

The young man is Henry Clinton, a lifelong friend who wants to marry her. Jean Louise is less enthusiastic, and teasingly tells him that she will have an affair, but will not marry him: “She was almost in love with him. No, that’s impossible, she thought: either you are or you aren’t. Love’s the only thing in this world that is unequivocal. There are different kinds of love, certainly, but it’s a you-do or you-don’t proposition with them all.”

Henry is a new character who does not appear in “Mockingbird.” Ms. Lee’s publisher has said that “Watchman” is full of new characters and has an entirely new plot. And while the book features familiar and cherished figures, not everyone makes it. Devotees of “Mockingbird” may be shocked by an offhand reference in the first chapter to the death of Jem Finch, Scout’s older brother, and her protector and occasional tormentor.

“Just about that time, Jean Louise’s brother dropped dead in his tracks one day, and after the nightmare of that was over, Atticus, who had always thought of leaving his practice to his son, looked around for another young man. It was natural for him to engage Henry, and in due course Henry became Atticus’s legman, his eyes, and his hands.”

The preview, which arrives days before the highly anticipated release of “Watchman” on Tuesday, will most likely further fuel anticipation for the novel, giving readers a first glimpse of a literary artifact that Ms. Lee wrote nearly 60 years ago, when she was living in New York and struggling to break into publishing.

While the book will almost certainly face heavy scrutiny as fans and scholars compare it with her acclaimed masterpiece, it is already destined to be a major commercial success. HarperCollins has ordered a first printing of two million copies for “Watchman,” which makes it the most preordered book in the publisher’s history. The novel is the most preordered print book on Amazon since the release of the final installment of the “Harry Potter” series in 2007. In Ms. Lee’s hometown, Monroeville, Ala., which has a population of around 6,300, the local bookstore has presold more than 7,000 copies.

Whether the book will resonate with fans and critics, though, remains to be seen. Ms. Lee wrote “Watchman” in the mid-1950s, and she set it aside when her editor told her to rewrite it from the perspective of Scout as a child — advice that gave rise to the story that would become “Mockingbird.” When the news of the publication was announced last February, questions quickly arose about why Ms. Lee, who had long claimed she was satisfied with her single contribution to American literature, decided to release it after all this time.

But whether it holds up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel, “Watchman” will offer readers an unprecedented and unfiltered look into the mind and creative process of one of the country’s most revered and enigmatic authors. The novel, however flawed, promises to shed new light on familiar characters, and to offer a rare look at the unedited prose of a writer who was so rattled by fame and the weight of expectations that, for decades, it seemed all but certain that she would never publish another word.