Harper Lee's Go Set a
Watchman goes on sale
The
much-anticipated new novel by Harper Lee, Go Set a Watchman, has gone on sale
around the world.
Many
bookshops remained open all night to cope with demand. Several hundred snapped
up copies at midnight at Foyles bookstore in London.
The
book is set 20 years after the events of Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel To Kill a Mockingbird.
"We
had a buzzy evening with the queue starting to form at 10pm," said
marketing manager Simon Heafield.
"If
this evening is anything to go by, Go Set a Watchman will live up to its
billing as the publishing event of the year."
In
Harper Lee's hometown, Monroeville in Alabama, a delivery of 7,000 copies of Go
Set a Watchman arrived at the small independent Ol' Curiosities and Book Shoppe
shortly before midnight.
"I've
had people calling from as far away as from England looking for the book
early," shop keeper Spencer Madrie told Reuters news agency. There were
cheers when the shop's doors opened.
- Reviews round-up
- A speed-reader's verdict
- Lee's Watchman casts Atticus Finch as a 'bigot'
- Can the novel live up to the hype?
- Harper Lee 'planned more novels'
Watchman
contains some of the same characters as Mockingbird, including Scout and her
father Atticus Finch. It has already proved controversial as early reviewers
noted that Atticus expresses racist views in the story.
The
story opens with Scout, now 26 and known as Jean Louise, returning on a train
to her Alabama hometown from New York.
Tracy
Chevalier, author of the bestselling novel Girl With a Pearl Earring, told BBC
Radio 4's Today programme that Watchman was a "roller coaster" of a
read.
"It's
making literary history to have a book that has a different take on characters
that we've all grown to love," she said.
"I
tried to read it simply on its own... There's some great storytelling in
it."
Go Set a Watchman
2 million
initial US print run
70
countries released
simultaneously
·
550 copies
ordered by New York Public Library
·
7 translations
available on day of publication
·
3 days wait for
German translation
·
50% discount on
RRP in many shops
Publicity-shy
author Lee, who is now 89 and lives in a nursing home in Monroeville,
originally wrote the book in 1957, before reworking it with her editor to
become courtroom drama To Kill a Mockingbird.
The
story of racism and injustice in the fictional town of Maycomb in the American
South went on to sell 40 million copies and be studied in schools around the
world.
Mockingbird
was also made into an Oscar-winning film starring Gregory Peck as lawyer Finch,
who defends an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman.
The
existence of Go Set a Watchman was revealed in February and it is being
released in 70 countries simultaneously.
The
opening chapter of the novel was published for the first time on Friday, and
many early reviews revealed that in later years Finch had in fact become
"a bigot".
"This story is of
the toppling of idols," wrote Sam Sacks in the Wall Street Journal, adding
that it was "a distressing book, one that delivers a startling rebuttal to
the shining idealism of To Kill a Mockingbird".
Sacks said: "For
the millions who hold that novel dear, Go Set a Watchman will be a test of
their tolerance and capacity for forgiveness."
The New York Times said
the revelation could "reshape Ms Lee's legacy" and made for
"disturbing reading".
Writing for The
Guardian, Mark Lawson said: "If the text now published had been the one
released in 1960, it would almost certainly not have achieved the same
greatness.
"This is not so
much due to literary inferiority, but because Go Set a Watchman is a much less
likeable and school-teachable book."
Lawson added that it
was "in most respects, a new work, and a pleasure, revelation and genuine
literary event... This publication intensifies the regret that Harper Lee
published so little."
To Kill a
Mockingbird
5,000
copies in initial print run
$20,000
value of a signed first-edition copy
·
Over 40m global
sales
·
40 languages
into which it has been translated
·
8 Oscar
nominations for 1962 film version
·
3 Oscar
wins
However,
The Telegraph gave Go Set a Watchman a two-star review, with Gaby Wood writing
"Harper Lee's editor deserves a Pulitzer for turning this ghostly first
draft into the masterful To Kill a Mockingbird".
She
added: "It feels like a sequel. But really, it's more like a ghost: The
spectre of Lee's restless, ardent thoughts in progress."
The
Independent's Arifa Akbar said: "We will never be able to read Mockingbird
in the same way again, and never see Atticus in the same light again.
"Despite
the boldness and bravery of its politics, Go Set a Watchman is a very rough
diamond in literary terms."
She
added: "Whatever its failings [it] can't be dismissed as literary scraps
from Lee's' imagination. It has too much integrity for that."
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