After more than 50 years, author Harper Lee will follow up her beloved, and only, book To Kill a Mockingbird with her second novel, Go Set a Watchman, set for release on July 14th, publisher HarperCollins announced today.I adored To Kill a Mockingbird, having first read it in high school during a class where we read a story and then followed up with watching the movie that was based upon it (we also watched Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, the 1946 version of Great Expectations, and The Great Gatsby with Robert Redford, among others). But To Kill a Mockingbird was riveting, both in book and film form, and I did wonder what happened to Scout when she grew up. It sounds like we may finally know.
The recently unearthed book is a quasi-sequel to Lee's 1960 classic, but as the author explained in a statement, Go Set a Watchman was actually written first and would eventually inspire Mockingbird. "It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort," Lee said. "My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told."
So mark your calendars for July 14th (Bastille Day, if that helps you remember). And I hope it comes out for the Kindle as well, because Mockingbird finally came out in that format this past autumn, and I do have it. Ooh, it really is a lovely thing that it's coming out soon!!!