- The Good: Southern American fiction about how racism is bad
- The Bad: Simplistic, even romanticized
- The Literary: Highly anticipated sequel to a Pulitzer Prize winning classic
Twenty-six year old Jean Louise Finch—”Scout”—returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Memories flood back, but everything has changed, including disturbing political turmoil and civil rights tensions. This sequel to the Pulitzer Prize winner adds depth and context to a beloved classic.
Much like its predecessor To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman spends quite a bit of time setting the scene, of small-town life, of the South, of what it’s like to be a child running free in hot summers, or a young woman returning to a hometown that feels both familiar and smaller. This ability to evoke such a specific time and place is one of my favorite things about Lee’s writing. I’m amazed how such simple prose can be so transportative.
But descriptions of childhood and the South aren’t what these books are known for, so let’s get into it.
I’ve heard three major complaints about Watchman. One, that 89-year-old Lee—who was infirm, suffering from dementia, and in assisted living—was manipulated into publishing the book. The state of Alabama launched an investigation into potential elder abuse but concluded that Lee had consented to the book’s release. Of course we can’t know for sure, but I’m willing to set this argument aside for now.
Two, that this sequel isn’t a standalone novel at all, but rather a rough draft of Mockingbird. Lee apparently submitted this draft to her publisher, who rejected it, and asked Lee to consider writing about Scout as a young girl instead. I agree that Watchman doesn’t stand on its own or make much sense without Mockingbird, but that’s the case with many sequels. Again, though it’s not often readers see into the writing process, and I’d argue many novels can come from a single story.
And three, that the hero and moral compass of Mockingbird, Atticus Finch, is revealed to be a racist in Watchman. This complaint, which actually pertains to the contents of the novel, is the heart of the issue, and why I believe readers are reaching for excuses to dismiss the novel’s existence. Adult Scout discovers her father Atticus is a vocal supporter of segregation, and both she and fans of Mockingbird are horrified and betrayed by this man who staked his reputation defending a black man accused of raping a white woman.
Set in the mid 1950’s against the backdrop of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, Scout returns home from New York, assuming her family feels as she does. Instead, her father and her love interest Henry are leading figures in Maycomb’s Citizens Council, created to defend segregation. Atticus believes that the NAACP doesn’t understand the southern black population and that their childlike mental capacity is not ready to vote or hold leadership roles in society.
If you read my review of Mockingbird, you’ll understand that I do not hold it to as high of a standard as many readers. It’s a sentimental tale about how a white man is the savior for a black man. It reduces racism to something that’s easy for white people to digest, so they can feel good about themselves. So honestly, I like that in Watchman Atticus’s true motivations become clear. He still believes in justice and will take a case to represent a black defendant, but he’s playing a legal game instead of a moral one.
Mockingbird is a bildungsroman, a coming of age tale for Scout to learn about racism and what it means to stand up for something against others. But she’s always standing with her father. In Watchman, Scout learns how to separate her moral compass from her father’s and what it means to stand up for something against your loved ones. It’s a powerful and difficult reading experience, because it’s a powerful and difficult human experience to see that your heroes are just regular flawed humans.
Readers idolized Atticus, who represents an idealized white liberal with perfect values. Atticus taught us that you’re either racist or you’re not. Mockingbird is inspirational, but detrimentally so. Racism exists outside of the KKK and neo-nazi groups. If Atticus Finch is a racist, it’s an acknowledgement that all of us could be. Good people can believe bad things. It’s up to Scout and all of us to continue to listen, emphasize, challenge our beliefs, and honor our consciences.
I like a lot about Watchman, but unfortunately, like its predecessor, it still prizes sentimentality over nuance. Despite Scout confronting her father about his backward beliefs, she ultimately forgives and accepts him, which doesn’t ring true. Scout’s father and her uncle deserve respect for being old white men and elders of the community, and because they’re of good breeding. We need a happy ending, so they agree to disagree.
Also, despite being held up as an example of how white people don’t have to be racist, Scout (and her father in Mockingbird), have a holier-than-thou attitude that doesn’t hold up well. Scout just can’t help it that she doesn’t see color. She wants all races to be treated equally, but believes a respectable middle-class white woman would never consider marrying a black man. The inherent conflicts in their beliefs are written as ideal versions, but it’s only in Watchman that the average reader sees the cracks.
In summary, Mockingbird and Watchman are well worth reading to understand race relations in the 50s and 60s, to see how far we’ve come, how far we’ve transgressed, and how far we still have to go. I’d agree with the book jacket that Watchman adds depth to Mockingbird, but not in the way readers expected.