A review by elrobhubbard
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

4.0

For a book with a huge obstacle in front of it - TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD - it largely succeeds on its own terms and despite the butt-hurt cries of those pissed off that Lee didn't write MOCKINGBIRD 2. In fact, the reaction make clear why Lee's editor, after reading this draft - WATCHMAN is supposedly the original draft of what became MOCKINGBIRD - advised her to retool the book to a tale of the main character's childhood, set in the past and not in the contemporary. It's oddly fitting that WATCHMAN seems very contemporary despite now being set in Our Past - MOCKINGBIRD is nostalgia, and ends well with 2 little White kids saved from a murderous racist (although the Black character dies ignobly offscreen after a noble trial, of course) and a nice warm glow is had by all. WATCHMAN throws nostalgia under the bus and rubs the reader's face in the uncomfortable reality, and ends on a far more ambiguous note - considering current events, it seems perfectly timed to address The State Of Things Now.

Yeah, it ain't MOCKINGBIRD - Jem's dead and Atticus eventually turns out to be all too human and flawed and not the Gregory Peck Pillar-Of-Virtue he was in the previous book - and "Nigger" is thrown around, although within proper context and true to the time period.

Deal With It.