Emon Munshi

Author: Harper Lee. Publisher: Random House, UK. Pages: 320. Price: ₹535. From Harper Lee comes a landmark new novel, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, "To Kill a Mockingbird". Originally written in the mid-1950s, "Go Set a Watchman" was the novel Harper Lee first submitted to her publishers before "To Kill a Mockingbird". Assumed to have been lost, the manuscript was discovered in late 2014. It is the story of twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch-"Scout" (the child heroine of Mockingbird) who returns home from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political termoil 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 close to her. The most disturbing discovery is that her father, Atticus, has joined one of the marginally respectable Citizens' Council, a kind of less covert version of the Ku Klux Klan (a right wing extremist organisation) in the USA. 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 the feelings of a young woman, in a painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past. It is a journey that can be guided only by one's conscience. The novel imparts a deep understanding and appreciation of Harper Lee. This novel is both wonderfully evocative of another era and is relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of "To Kill a Mockingbird", but also serves as an essential companion to the American classic.