I know what I’ll be reading in July: Go Set a Watchman, the old new novel from Harper Lee.
"Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus," the publisher’s announcement reads. "She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood."
This is not a ghost-written attempt to cash in, it seems. This was Lee’s first novel, that inspired To Kill a Mockingbird but was unpublished, and has recently been rediscovered. It could be an awful first effort, or it could be a real jewel.
It still doesn’t answer the question of why such a talented writer just stopped with her first grand success.
Two words: Pressure and Publicity
I really hope it isn’t terrrible. It’s been said that everyone has one good book in them, it takes a gifted writer to write more than one.
Maybe she felt, rightly or wrongly, that she had written her one good book.
One good book is WAY more than most people have. She had a GREAT book. And if that’s enough for her, well good for her and her self-awareness.
Better that than the current fad of everything being a multi-book series…heck a trilogy is pretty much the minimum these days. Each installment being a lesser and lesser interesting work than the first.
“I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again.”
or, in longer form from Talking Heads: “You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything. When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed. Say something once, why say it again?”
Lots of reasons why a talented writer might stop. There was a Thomas Mann quote about genius which I can’t quite remember, but the gist of it is that minds that are atypical in one way (able to write a book like ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’) are likely to be atypical in other, less acceptable ways. Maybe that was what she set out to say, and having said it, she was done. Maybe she felt like she was out of inspiration. Maybe the pressure of her one great success proved too much. Maybe it was some weird reason that only makes sense to her.
I’m just happy she’s willing to release the new book. I’m going to be reading it as soon as I get it in my hot little hands.
There seems to be some doubt about the author’s informed consent: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2015/02/new-harper-lee-novel
And recorded three albums! ;)
You obviously don’t have kids.
Crip Dyke @10
Ayuh, if you can say it once, you can say it at least ten times in a row within 15 minutes, if you really have to. And even if you don’t.
+++
re: Harper Lee’s new book
I’m looking forward to it, and I certainly hope she hasn’t been taken advantage of.
“it’s interesting that all the folks that are buying [To Kill a Mockingbird] don’t know they are reading a child’s book.” – Flannery O’Connor
The fact that Harper Lee is reportedly senile, the fact that she – according to the lawyer in question will sign anything her lawyer sets in front of her (including things she doesn’t understand), and the fact that until recently Lee and her estate were carefully guarded and protected by her late sister Alice (who was referred to as “Atticus in a skirt”) concerns me greatly.
If Harper Lee wrote a sequel but decided it wasn’t worth publishing, maybe she was right to do this? And the fact that there seems to be an acute shortage of people looking out for her who actually have her best interests in mind is genuinely distressing.
It does seem awfully fishy.
Had to read the book To kill a Mockingbird in school. When I reread it has an adult I can’t say I liked it very much this coming of age story dripping in nostalgia and saccharine. Further the ending was straight Deus ex Machina and the way the town basically knowingly sacrificed an innocent man to preserve “White Supremacy” while ostracizing the real killer and felt morally superior while doing so was frankly odious. It was indeed very well written but the nostalgia treacle in it was annoying.
@pacal
That odiousness is the point. You’re supposed to say “Hey, this was a shitty way to treat people!”
I’ve never understood how having a young protagonist makes a book into “a children’s book”.
Nothing like a little rape-incest-insanity-murder to make a sweet, nostalgic kiddy book.
PZ,
I’ll be passing this up because this is the book her editor, the one who edited “To Kill A Mockingbird,” rejected.
Some writers really do have just one book in them and I think Harper Lee is one of them.
I’m also unhappy to think of the resources and capital that will be poured into this book based not on literary merit, but on the millions of readers who will jump at the chance of one more pass at Lee’s small town. That money might be better spent on smaller press runs of newer writers who will not be published because of Lee’s first, and previously unpublished, book has emptied the coffers.
Jeff
It’s sad to hear that this release probably wasn’t of her own free will. I don’t know that I can support it in that case.
But I don’t know that I could support it anyway, since we still lack the technology to revive Gregory Peck to play Atticus in the sure-to-follow movie.
I’m reminded of the time shortly after Dr. Seuss died, when they began scraping out the linings of his desk drawers and publishing ever scrap he ever sought to bury. Reading something like “Daisy-head Maisy” just increased my respect for the man: he was smart enough to know when he had written something bad, and never try to publish it.
I’m going to assume that Harper Lee has known perfectly well that this novel existed for all those years. If she didn’t think it was worth publishing, that’s good enough for me.
So there have been several articles out, some pro and some con the book, but they all mention two linked facts: 1) is the part of Harper Lee’s statement that says the books is ‘suitable for publication’, which sort of breaks my heart because of all the terrible literature out there that has been considered suitable for publication, and 2) is the bit which Buzzfeed mentions, that the book will be published as written, with no revisions. That… that can’t be a good thing, can it? Especially if it’s a first novel. And other novels published as written have suffered for it (third installment of Stieg Larssen’s trilogy comes to mind).
I’ll admit, my first reaction was unalloyed excitement. But the more information is revealed about this new-found old-text publication, I’m starting to reconsider whether my curiosity about it will outweigh the issues arising.
Mallory Ortberg points out some troublesome weaseling from the editor:
http://the-toast.net/2015/02/04/questions-harper-lee-editor-interview/