Harper Lee’s buzzed-about new release, Go Set A Watchman, went on sale last week, taking the world by storm with its new investigations of Scout Finch as a grown woman and its divisive portrayal of her father, Atticus Finch, as a racist figure. Here are some highlights from the new book:
- Publication of the book ends a notorious 50-year stalemate as Harper Lee finally consents to depicting a train on the dust jacket
- 1950s prose gorgeously rendered in 11-point Big Caslon font
- Hooks readers with its wildly implausible storyline suggesting it’s possible to see one’s parent in a different light as an adult
- Jean Louise is now 26 and relishing the opportunity to cuss as much as she wants
- Atticus shocks readers as a white man who has become a conservative blowhard with age
- Pretty tense Thanksgiving dinner
- Old rocking chair on the front porch swaying in the breeze makes poignant appearance in third chapter
- Eighteen pages of comprehension questions to encourage critical thinking and small group discussion
- Boo Radley, who has lived a contented life of seclusion in Alabama for decades, is dragged into the spotlight and coerced into signing away the rights to his long-dormant manuscript