The book is not even out, and readers are already rebelling.
Harper Lee's
"Go Set a Watchman" hits stores Tuesday, 55 years after "To Kill
a Mockingbird." The book is hotly anticipated but not without controversy.
(Spoiler Alert: Don't read the next paragraph if you don't want to know more.)
It purportedly recasts Atticus Finch, the moral center of
Harper's first book, as racist.
Lee completed "Go Set a Watchman" in the 1950s. The
manuscript was rediscovered last year.
It picks up the
story of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, the young girl who narrates her
adventures in a small Alabama town in "Mockingbird."
"Mockingbird"
was published in 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize and sold more than 40 million
copies. But now, some fans are saying they might not even read Lee's new book
because of the racist revelation. They say ignorance can be bliss.
"Readers will do as they wish," filmmaker Mary Murphy,
who recently spent time with the reclusive Lee, told CNN.
She offered a
potentially more nuanced view of "Watchman."
"Let's
remember that Alabama was a state that would have rather closed its public
schools than integrate them. This is the climate in which this book
appears," Murphy said.
"And a
truly liberated white Southern man wasn't something you'd find in these small
towns, or across the state. So, Atticus, in the book, reflects -- sort of --
the time, and reflects the culture of the time."
Some fans agree.
Heroes are complicated, they say, and life is not about easy -- or necessarily
agreeable -- answers.
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