When the news broke that another Harper Lee novel was to be released, like millions I felt excitement and trepidation. I first read To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM) when I was twelve and have reread it every few years ever since. The characters live in my consciousness like people I have actually met. One time my sister and I were talking about the book and I said something about Miss Maudie Atkinson. “Oh, Maudie’s great,” Erika said, exactly as if we were talking about a favorite neighbor of our own. So the question of “What the hell happened to Atticus in the next twenty years?” is important and (despite internet scoffing about people’s being upset about a fictional character) anything but trivial. It’s at the core of Go Set a Watchman (GSAW) and very relevant to our lives in the United States in 2015. But it’ll be the subject of my fourth post on this book. This post is about something different.
The trepidation I felt had mostly to do with the circumstances of publication. Lee is deaf and blind now, and the communiques about this new book–actually written before TKAM and set aside–came entirely from her executor. Was someone just cashing in on an old draft that Lee never wanted to see the light? She had been asked, of course, why she’d only published one book (to which she once answered that she’d said all that she had to say); she could have had GSAW published anytime; why wasn’t it published until after she was incapacitated? It was suspicious.
As soon as I began the new book, my suspicions grew. Whole descriptions were almost identical in the two books: not the fleeting descriptions such as one expects in a series (“Harry had jet-black hair that was always untidy, bright green eyes, and a scar on his forehead in the shape of a lightning bolt”–repeat seven times), but vivid portraits such as no writer would deliberately use twice. For one of the most obvious examples, here are two portraits of Scout and Jem’s Aunt Alexandra:
To all parties present and participating in the life of the county, however, Alexandra was the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was a disapprover; she was an incurable gossip.
When Aunt Alexandra went to finishing school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning; she was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. (Go Set a Watchman, page 28)
. . . . To all parties present and participating in the life of the county, Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was born in the objective case; she was an incurable gossip. When Aunt Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. (To Kill a Mockingbird, Popular Library paperback edition, page 131)
The reason for the similarity is obvious: when writing her second book, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lee mined her earlier draft for some of its best passages. That makes complete sense.
Surely, then, if she decided to take GSAW out of her file cabinet 50 years later, she would read it for such repetitions and rewrite these passages. The most likely explanation for the fact that they keep appearing is that Harper Lee was not involved in the publication of this book. This is a deeply sad and disturbing fact. When people wondered whether Go Set a Watchman could possibly attain the standard set by To Kill a Mockingbird, I said I didn’t care; I would read Harper Lee’s shopping list. But damn it, only if she wanted me to. (It’s also possible that she gave the go-ahead but did not reread or edit it for publication. Given the craftswomanship she put into TKAM, I don’t give it serious credence. But who knows.)
I’ve had it happen to me: a mix-up in the editing process led to an earlier draft of an essay I wrote (this one, in fact) being included for publication. Later printings corrected the error, but I wince at the knowledge that the half-formed, awkwardly-stated thoughts that I and the editors wisely removed are out there on people’s bookshelves.
It was not easy to read Go Set a Watchman, and one reason was my growing remorse as I felt as if I were peeking into someone’s private papers. Harper Lee has given me so much, and it appears I have repaid her by reading an inferior draft that she never meant anyone to see.
Next post: Not the same Scout
Sermons in Stones 
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July 30, 2015 at 2:34 pm
Larry Stauber
I get your point. But isn’t there some value for a writer to see how another writer’s (great) book evolved? Don’t we find it fascinating to see the strikeouts, the substitutions, the more elegant phrasing? If Harper Lee’s editor had as much influence on the eventual product (TKAM) as alleged, I for one would love to know how much change could be attributed to her. I suppose we can’t know that, but I think there’s much to be learned about how a book is improved with rewriting, no matter who is responsible.
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July 30, 2015 at 2:57 pm
Amy Zucker Morgenstern
So you’re saying that Go Set a Watchman is being marketed as an earlier draft of To Kill a Mockingbird? Interesting possibility. I had missed that. I’ve heard that “Ms. Hohoff [her editor] asked her to effectively write another novel but told from the point of view of the central character, Jean Louise, as a young girl.” It does not read as even substantially the same book as TKAM.
Of course, the person who said the above, Jonathan Burnham, also said (according to NPR reporter Lynn Neary) that it reads like a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird, something with which I will strenuously disagree in my next post, and that I think is frankly indefensible from anyone who claims to be very familiar with TKAM, unless they are using the term “sequel” very loosely. (The more accurate term would be “reboot.”) He also thinks “it needs no editing at all” and “stands perfectly as it is.” Please! The book is a mess, nowhere near the heights this great novelist could achieve. (http://www.npr.org/2015/02/03/383578242/55-years-after-to-kill-a-mockingbird-harper-lee-to-release-new-novel)
Like you, I do love seeing people’s drafts and unfinished works. It reveals so much about the process of creation. But I think it’s unethical to look at them unless they allow it, or to approach them as a polished work when they weren’t meant that way. I read Kafka without such guilt, because while he ordered his friend to burn all his unpublished work (which was most of it), his friend told him flat out that he wouldn’t. As I read, I keep in mind that they are drafts.
I think it’s unfair to credit the editor of To Kill a Mockingbird with so much of its quality. It was Lee’s second book; she learned a lot in the process of writing the first one (and you can see the seeds of a great writer in GSAW, despite its ample flaws). Every writer I’ve ever heard of says they’ve got crappy first drafts and justly unpublished stuff sitting in boxes and on hard drives. If peeking at Lee’s earlier efforts leads us to think that she didn’t truly have the talent that shows in TKAM, that would be an even worse injustice.
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July 31, 2015 at 2:03 am
affirmandpromote
Oh I didn’t read Amy as saying that the editor is responsible for the higher quality of writing in TKAM only that they had the very good wisdom to push and coach in good directions. Though that does make me think on how much writing though we think of it as something an individual does is often something that happens a bit more as a team. I can see a big difference between what I wrote when I was married to my first husband and what I wrote later and had a different person I turned to to read and offer suggestions on drafts. I wonder now if it wouldn’t be worth starting to note and credit whoever one’s readers are when publishing.
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July 31, 2015 at 9:14 am
Amy Zucker Morgenstern
Neat idea! Some writers do.
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July 31, 2015 at 1:57 am
affirmandpromote
I’m looking forward to reading what your thoughts are about scout and I also felt she seemed quite changed or other. I think you make a good point for there is something that can feel prurient in reading what as you say reads so much as a draft. I did see an interview with her sister who said that Harper had reviewed and agreed to the publication but it only made me wonder if she approached it with a hands off indifference. Frankly I don’t see why they couldn’t have released it as that- essentially as the first version of what became TKAM. I’m not sure that they have been published but there have been some wonderful things to be found in a recent discovery of original -pre edited- copies of Jane Austen’s novels and a copy of an early draft of Frankenstein that included P. B. Shelly’s notes and revisions which yielded much insight about the final work. But this could have been approached similarly. Of course that is to sacrifice dollars for scholarly integrity. But if we approach it that way then we can see instead of an author justifying or capitulating to racism and sexism one that has from the start demonstrated a gifted capacity to negotiate complexity who in the course of living with her characters and working into her story evolves and grows through the telling of it and gains a voice that speaks to an integrity greater than her experience and frankly inspires the imagination of her readers to soar beyond the reach of the story and characters about which he or she is reading. Don’t follow Harper Lee’s practice in writing your follow up review– meaning I hope to read it soon not 40 years from now (just teasing).
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July 31, 2015 at 8:17 am
Andrew Hidas
I’m glad to read this, Amy. The whole thing had a fishy, off-putting quality to me, a historical curiosity rather than a purely literary one (except for more academically inclined readers who enjoy delving into the many issues you’ve raised here). I think I’ll skip reading the book, but will look forward to your subsequent posts!
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