The Racism of Atticus Finch: How Does A.C. Lee’s Real Life Illuminate ‘Go Set a Watchman’?

By Jonathon Sturgeon July 13, 2015 - Flavorwire

Atticus Finch, at least in Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, is a bigot. This according to Michiko Kakutani’s incendiary review of the novel published by the New York Times on Friday. But what are the implications for Watchman?

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And from Publishers Lunch:

Carter Op-Ed Claims "Full Story" on WATCHMAN Manuscript Discovery

Over the weekend all pretense of holding to the Tuesday embargo for reviews of GO SET A WATCHMAN evaporated. Michiko Kakutani went first late Friday, revealing in her NYT review (which essentially doubled as breaking news) that Harper Lee's original novel -- out of which resulted TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD -- presents an older, infirm Atticus Finch espousing racist, segregationist views and going to "at least one KKK meeting."

At the same time, it appeared the WSJ's "pre-publication marketing campaign" included an essay from Lee's "estate trustee, lawyer, and friend" Tonja B. Carter, who claims to tell the "full story, fill in any blanks that may be in people's minds, and provide a historical context for those interested in how this book went from lost to being found." (Aside from the column, Carter has declined on the record interviews with the press -- including the WSJ's own reporters.) Carter confirms the 2011 meeting reported by the NYT with Sotheby's agent Justin Caldwell and Lee's former agent Sam Pinkus -- with whom Lee settled a copyright lawsuit in 2013 -- where pages of the Watchman manuscript were apparently seen, but says she "left the meeting and did not return" for unexplained reasons, after retrieving a copy of MOCKINGBIRD to compare against the loose pages in the safe-deposit box.

The remarkably uncurious Carter said she took a closer look at the pages in the summer of 2014 when talk at a family gathering turned to a possible second novel by Lee, and Carter "remembered the manuscript pages with a character named Hank and began to wonder if perhaps Hank was part of another novel." Thus came the discovery of WATCHMAN buried underneath the other manuscript pages.

Last week, Carter said, she and "a colleague" went back to the magical box and retrieved the pages as well as a "partially open mailer from Lippincott" and discovered the original manuscript of MOCKINGBIRD, but something else as well: "Was it an earlier draft of WATCHMAN or MOCKINGBIRD? Or even, as early correspondence indicates it might be, a third book bridging the two? I don't know. But this much I do know: In the coming months, experts, at Nelle's direction, will be invited to examine and authenticate all the documents in the safe-deposit box." 

And more at The Telegraph