Harper Lee, the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, was well known for keeping her life private and never planned to write a follow-up to her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. However, that all changed on Tuesday, when her publisher announced that a sequel written in the 1950s will finally be published.
While many of Mockingbird’s fans celebrated, some in Lee’s Alabama neighborhood are skeptical. They don’t think Lee intended to have the book published and it is only happening because of the recent death of her older sister, Alice, who handled many of Lee's affairs.
Two family friends told the Associated Press that the 88-year-old Lee appeared fragile at Alice’s funeral in November. One of the friends said that her mumbling shocked many in attendance.
Others in Monroeville, Alabama said that it is well-known in the area that Lee is deaf and blind following a stroke she suffered a few years ago.
However, HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham told the AP Tuesday that he is “completely confident” that Lee was involved in the final decision to release the book, titled Go Set A Watchman.
Hugh Van Dusen, her U.S. editor at HarperCollins, told Vulture that he didn’t even know Watchman existed until the day before the announcement. He hadn’t even read the book yet.
Van Dusen said he was told the same story about the book that HarperCollins gave the public on Tuesday. The story goes that Lee wrote Watchman before Mockingbird and was told by her editor at the time that she should re-write it to focus on younger Scout, creating the book we know and love.
Van Dusen also said that HarperCollins never dealt with Lee directly, only speaking through her lawyer. However, Lee’s international agent Andrew Nurnberg told The Guardian that he did meet with Lee directly.
“She was genuinely surprised at the discovery of the manuscript but delighted by the suggestion to publish what she considers to be the ‘parent’ to Mockingbird,” Nurnberg said in a statement. “I met with her last autumn and again over two days in January; she was in great spirits and increasingly excited at the prospect of this novel finally seeing the light of day.”
Watchmen will be released on July 14. HarperCollins plans on publishing 2 million copies right away.
“It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became To Kill a Mockingbird) from the point of view of the young Scout,” Lee said in the announcement on Tuesday.