Go Set a Watchman: A Novel by Harper Lee

Go Set a Watchman: A Novel (original 2015; edition 2015)

by Harper Lee (Author)

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10,663	455	719	(3.33)	4 / 304
Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML: Performed by Reese Witherspoon #1 New York Times Bestseller "Go Set a Watchman is such an important book, perhaps the most important novel on race to come out of the white South in decades." � New York Times A landmark novel by Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize�winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch�"Scout"�returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past�a journey that can only be guided by one's own conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of the late Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor, and effortless precision�a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context, and new meaning to an American classic. .… (more)

▾Book information

Member:	fredamans
Title:	Go Set a Watchman: A Novel
Authors:	Harper Lee (Author)
Info:	Harper (2015), Edition: 1, 288 pages
Collections:	Your library
Rating:
Tags:	southern literary fiction

Work Information

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee (2015)

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132
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (JuliaMaria, KayCliff)
JuliaMaria: Harper Lee hat nur zwei Bücher veröffentlicht. Das zweite - "Gehe hin, stelle einen Wächter" - erst mit 90 Jahren - auch wenn es schon früher geschrieben wurde. Es war die literarische Sensation des Jahres 2015.
KayCliff: Go Set a Watchman is the sequel to To Kill a Mocking Bird
52
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (Cecrow)
Cecrow: Another story of the south by an author with similar background.
30
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor (amanda4242)
20
The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty (BookshelfMonstrosity)
BookshelfMonstrosity: Moving and bittersweet, these Southern Gothic novels portray women pushed to their emotional limits as they return home and re-establish old relationships. Both are literary and character-driven, with a thoughtful style that also references mid-twentieth-century events and attitudes.… (more)
10
Four Spirits by Sena Jeter Naslund (BookshelfMonstrosity)
BookshelfMonstrosity: Although Go Set a Watchman takes a more humorous approach than Four Spirits, both novels, set in the mid-twentieth-century South, spotlight the effects of the Civil Rights Movement on individuals. They are captivating, character-driven cameos representing society as a whole.… (more)
10
Tongues of flame by Mary Ward Brown (andrewcorser)
andrewcorser: Further insight into the Southern States
10
The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau (vwinsloe)
vwinsloe: Southern values shortly before the civil rights era

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▾Will you like it?

▾Conversations (About links)

Group › Topic	Messages	Last Message
Name that Book: Book that's like To Kill A Mockingbird but isn't that	1 unread / 1	melannen, April 2024
Girlybooks: Harper Lee's new release- Will you read it?	51 unread / 51	Citizenjoyce, February 2016
Book talk: Go Set a Watchman release day	39 unread / 39	maggie1944, July 2015
Talk about LibraryThing: Recommendations on Go Set a Watchman?	17 unread / 17	MaureenRoy, July 2015

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Showing 1-5 of 443 (next | show all)

Very interesting to read, especially when you consider what this book is. I am glad that To Kill a Mockingbird got written and published in the end, but I'm also glad that I had the opportunity to read this book. (

)

pinkbookscoffee | Jan 3, 2025 |

"Prejudice, a dirty word, and faith, a clean one, have something in common: they both begin where reason ends." (

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lou_intheberkshires | Dec 26, 2024 |

Now that it's been a year or two since I read the book, I remember nothing about it except that, at the beginning, Scout was on the train heading south for a visit home. And also that I noticed none of the racism that the book was supposed to portray. So I guess it wasn't very memorable. Overall, a disappointment. (

)

casey2962 | Dec 16, 2024 |

Twenty years or so after the events in "To Kill a Mockingbird" Jean Louise (Scout) Finch, now in her late twenties, travels from New York back to her hometown to visit her dad Atticus, now in his 70s and suffering from advanced arthritis. But both the town and Jean Louise have changed and as desegregation sweeps through the South she's in for a couple of harsh revelations. If Harper Lee's original work was a fine piece of 20th century English literature, this shrill sequel reads more like impassioned fan fiction. Rambling, and full of non-sequiturs (a chapter devoted to a young and ill-informed Scout obsessing over where babies come from, another little more than a stand-up routine about a pair of "falsies") it takes Lee almost 200 pages to finally get to the point and even that comes as series of didactic lectures rather than believably spontaneous dialogue. But Lee does drive home her point with the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama serving as a microcosm for the 1950s wherein Scout, now a fiery Northern liberal, must face not only the complacency, fear, and prejudices which she was once blind to but her own privileged childhood being the headstrong daughter of a famous father. Lee certainly challenges her readers by casting Mockingbird's incorruptible Atticus Finch in a very different light, but unfortunately what could have been an eye-opening novella gets bogged down with too much narrative padding and an ending that reads more like a cop-out than a resolution. (

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NurseBob | Nov 22, 2024 |

I love this book. It gave me a much greater appreciation for TKAM. To me, racism isn't the primary focus of this novel. Rather, it's is Scout's growth into an adult, and letting go of the illusions of childhood, no matter how prized they were to here. For all of the reviews saying that this shouldn't have been published, it seems they've misunderstood this book. Knowing the context of the novel itself (that TKAM was born from this and not the other way around) is important to fully appreciating it. Is the writing shaky? Yes. There is one big inconsistency that detaches it from its "predecessor" and there are abrupt shifts to Scout's childhood. However, I felt this only added to the conflict Scout was feeling throughout the novel. This is a must read for everyone. (

)

EllAreBee | Nov 16, 2024 |

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Showing 1-5 of 443 (next | show all)

▾Published reviews

9 reviews

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thingScore 42

Shockingly, in Ms. Lee’s long-awaited novel, “Go Set a Watchman” (due out Tuesday), Atticus is a racist who once attended a Klan meeting, who says things like “The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.” Or asks his daughter: “Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?” The depiction of Atticus in “Watchman” makes for disturbing reading, and for “Mockingbird” fans, it’s especially disorienting. Scout is shocked to find, during her trip home, that her beloved father, who taught her everything she knows about fairness and compassion, has been affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares her horror and confusion. “Mockingbird” suggested that we should have compassion for outsiders like Boo and Tom Robinson, while “Watchman” asks us to have understanding for a bigot named Atticus.

added by rybie2 | editNew York times, Michiko Kakutani (Jul 10, 2018)

And so beneath Atticus’s style of enlightenment is a kind of bigotry that could not recognize itself as such at the time. The historical and human fallacies of the Agrarian ideology hardly need to be rehearsed now, but it should be said that these views were not regarded as ridiculous by intellectuals at the time. Indeed, Jean Louise/Lee herself, though passionately opposed to what her uncle and her father are saying, nevertheless accepts the general terms of the debate as the right ones.

added by danielx | editNew Yorker, Adam Gopnik (Jul 27, 2015)

Go Set a Watchman is a troubling confusion of a novel, politically and artistically, beginning with its fishy origin story. .. I ached for this adult Scout: The civil rights movement may be gathering force, but the second women's movement hasn't happened yet. I wanted to transport Scout to our own time — take her to a performance of Fun Home on Broadway — to know that, if she could only hang on, the possibilities for nonconforming tomboys will open up. Lee herself, writing in the 1950s, lacks the language and social imagination to fully develop this potentially powerful theme.

added by danielx | editNPR books, Maureen Corrigan (Jul 13, 2015)

Despite the boldness and bravery of its politics, Go Set a Watchman is a very rough diamond in literary terms … it is a book of enormous literary interest, and questionable literary merit.

added by Widsith | editThe Independent, Arifa Akbar (Jul 13, 2015)

It is, in most respects, a new work, and a pleasure, revelation and genuine literary event, akin to the discovery of extra sections from T S Eliot’s The Waste Land or a missing act from Hamlet hinting that the prince may have killed his father.

added by Widsith | editThe Guardian, Mark Lawson (Jul 12, 2015)

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▾Other authors

» Add other authors (36 possible)

Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Lee, Harper	—	primary author	all editions	confirmed
Drews, Kristiina	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Johansson, Eva	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
Witherspoon, Reese	Narrator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed
אלפון, מיכל	Translator	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

▾Series and work relationships

Belongs to Publisher Series

rororo Taschenbuch (2)

Is contained in

To Kill a Mockingbird / Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

▾Awards and Honors

Awards

Audie Award (Finalist – Audiobook of the Year – 2016)

Booklist Editors' Choice: Adult Audio (2015)

British Book Awards (Shortlist – Fiction Book of the Year – 2016)

Goodreads Choice Awards (Winner – Fiction – 2015)

Hillsboro Reads (2015)

Waterstones Book of the Year (Shortlist – 2015)

Distinctions

Best-selling books according to Pro-books.ru (2016)

The Observer Book of the Year (Fiction – 2015)

SPIEGEL-Bestseller (2015)

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▾Common Knowledge

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Canonical title

Go Set a Watchman

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

2015-07-14

People/Characters

Jean Louise "Scout" Finch

Atticus Finch

Henry Clinton (Hank)

Alexandra Finch Hancock (Zandra)

Calpurnia [in To Kill a Mockingbird]

(show all 6 items)

Important places

Maycomb, Alabama, USA

Important events

Civil Rights Movement, USA

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas

Related movies

Epigraph

Dedication

In memory of Mr. Lee and Alice

First words

Since Atlanta, she had looked out the dining-car window with a delight almost physical.

Quotations

"Every man's island, Jean Louise, every man's watchman, is his conscience." "There is no such thing as a collective conscious".

"Aunty," she said, cordially, "why don't you go pee in your hat?"

I need a watchman to lead me around and declare what he seeth every hour on the hour. I need a watchman to tell me this is what a man says but this is what he means, to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference. I need a watchman to go forth and proclaim to them all that twenty-six years is too long to play a joke on anybody, no matter how funny it is.

I was taught never to take advantage of anybody who was less fortunate than myself, whether he be less fortunate in brains, wealth, or social position; it meant anybody, not just Negroes. I was given to understand that the reverse was to be despised. That is the way I was raised, by a black woman and a white man.

I detest the sound of it as much as its matter

(show all 8 items)

Last words

(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)

Disambiguation notice

This is a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird that was published after Lee's death. The two books do not constitute a series nor is one a sequel to the other.

Publisher's editors

Blurbers

Original language

English

Canonical DDC/MDS

Canonical LCC

▾References

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (1)

Go Set a Watchman

▾Book descriptions

Classic Literature. Fiction. Literature. HTML:

Performed by Reese Witherspoon

#1 New York Times Bestseller

"Go Set a Watchman is such an important book, perhaps the most important novel on race to come out of the white South in decades." � New York Times

A landmark novel by Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize�winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch�"Scout"�returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past�a journey that can only be guided by one's own conscience.

Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of the late Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor, and effortless precision�a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context, and new meaning to an American classic.

▾Library descriptions

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▾LibraryThing members' description

Book description

From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Maycomb, Alabama. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch—"Scout"—returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil that were transforming the South, Jean Louise's homecoming turns bittersweet when she learns disturbing truths about her close-knit family, the town, and the people dearest to her. Memories from her childhood flood back, and her values and assumptions are thrown into doubt. Featuring many of the iconic characters from To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman perfectly captures a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past—a journey that can only be guided by one's own conscience.

Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor, and effortless precision—a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird, but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context, and new meaning to an American classic.

Haiku summary

Scout Finch returns home/Atticus is a racist/Scout sees him anew (waitingtoderail)