---
product_id: 27351051
title: "Go Set a Watchman (Reg PB)"
price: "€ 30.75"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/27351051-go-set-a-watchman-reg-pb
store_origin: BE
region: Belgium
---

# Go Set a Watchman (Reg PB)

**Price:** € 30.75
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Go Set a Watchman (Reg PB)
- **How much does it cost?** € 30.75 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/27351051-go-set-a-watchman-reg-pb)

## Best For

- Customers looking for quality international products

## Why This Product

- Free international shipping included
- Worldwide delivery with tracking
- 15-day hassle-free returns

## Description

Look for The Land of Sweet Forever , a posthumous collection of newly discovered short stories and previously published essays and magazine pieces by Harper Lee, coming October 21, 2025. #1 New York Times Bestseller “ Go Set a Watchman is such an important book, perhaps the most important novel on race to come out of the white South in decades." — New York Times A landmark novel by Harper Lee, set two decades after her beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning masterpiece, To Kill a Mockingbird. Twenty-six-year-old Jean Louise Finch—“Scout”—returns home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City to visit her aging father, Atticus. Set against the backdrop of the civil rights tensions and political turmoil 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 dearest to her. 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 a young woman, and a world, in painful yet necessary transition out of the illusions of the past—a journey that can only be guided by one’s own conscience. Written in the mid-1950s, Go Set a Watchman imparts a fuller, richer understanding and appreciation of the late Harper Lee. Here is an unforgettable novel of wisdom, humanity, passion, humor, and effortless precision—a profoundly affecting work of art that is both wonderfully evocative of another era and relevant to our own times. It not only confirms the enduring brilliance of To Kill a Mockingbird , but also serves as its essential companion, adding depth, context, and new meaning to an American classic.

Review: A Necessary Companion to To Kill a Mockingbird - The Enigma That Is Atticus Finch by Don Sugg “People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Although not nearly as artfully crafted as her classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s 1957 first novel, Go Set a Watchman, contains flashes of why she is considered by many to be one of the premier twentieth century American novelists. This newly published novel had been rejected for publication until Lee re-wrote it from the perspective of Jean Louise, not as an adult, but as a child ranging in age between six and eight. To Kill a Mockingbird, subsequently went on to become one of the most widely read and deeply beloved American novels and films of all time, read and viewed by millions of students and adults alike. In Watchman’s first chapter, Lee immerses the reader in the same small, imaginary, and seemingly bucolic town of Maycomb, Alabama, in a manner that even the most ardent of Yankees will embrace. However, as one might suspect, there is something rotten in the town of Maycomb. Although Watchman focuses on the same characters we learned to love in Mockingbird, albeit twenty years later, the public reaction to it has been dramatically different. Despite there having been more pre-publication anticipation of Watchman than any novel since the Harry Potter series, there has been widespread indignation and gnashing of teeth by Mockingbird fans who, upon reading Watchman, discover that their sainted hero, Atticus Finch, turns out to be a far more complex, three-dimensional human being - one with warts, secrets, prejudices, and all. One couple, who had named their son Atticus, actually went so far as to have his name legally changed after they read Watchman. The great Canadian author, Robertson Davies, once wrote “You never read the same book twice”. This is certainly true of To Kill a Mockingbird. Taking the opportunity afforded by the publication of Watchman to revisit Mockingbird from an adult perspective and engaging in a careful, more critical reading, the reader may well come away with a very different view of Atticus Finch. Looking beyond the naïve perspective of his adoring daughter, Scout, and closely examining the more subtle facts of the story, we can see what a flawed man Atticus actually is - both as an attorney and as a father. Of his three criminal cases mentioned in the book, his first two ended with his clients being hanged. In the third, his client, Tom Robinson, is wrongly convicted of raping a white woman and subsequently commits suicide-by-cop. Even though Atticus knew full well that Tom could never receive a fair trial in racist Maycomb, he negligently fails to file a pre-trial motion for change of venue. Upon being asked why, he simply mumbles an inaudible response. On cross-examination, he never asks Mayella about sending her siblings away so that she could seduce Tom, nor does he call any of them as witnesses to corroberate Tom’s story. Despite complaining in his closing argument that the prosecution provided no medical evidence that a rape had been committed, Atticus himself fails to produce any medical testimony regarding Tom's disability. Instead he relies on a cheap and ultimately unconvincing courtroom stunt that could easily have been faked. Although it makes for a compelling visual image in both the book and the film, it simply doesn’t pass for good trial practice. Thus despite Atticus’s claims to the contrary, the only apparent issue available to poor Tom on appeal would seem to have been ineffective assistance of counsel. Atticus also proves himself to be an even worse father than attorney. Although the rest of the town attends the school pageant, Atticus selfishly and neglectfully refuses to escort Scout, electing instead to stay home and pay Jem to take her in his stead. He does this knowing that Bob Ewell who had threatened revenge on Atticus for his defense of Tom Robinson was openly accusing Atticus of getting him fired from his WPA job. Ewell had also recently attempted to break into Judge Taylor’s house and repeatedly harassed Tom Robinson’s widow, Helen. Had Atticus taken Scout to the pageant himself, Bob Ewell’s attack on Jem and Scout likely would never have occurred. Even after the attack, Atticus shows no remorse for his poor decision. Incredulously, Atticus, an experienced criminal defense attorney, actually encourages Sheriff Tate to bring a homicide charge against Jem for killing Bob Ewell. He does this despite the fact that Jem’s diminutive size and broken arm would have logically precluded him from having committed the stabbing. Why didn’t Atticus wait until Jem had regained consciousness and gotten his version of the events? When Boo Radley carried the injured and unconscious Jem home, why didn’t he even ask Boo Radley what had happened? How was Jem rendered unconscious after he had supposedly mortally wounded Ewell? Why was Atticus so willing, even anxious, to bring Jem to trial for the death of the very man whose testimony convinced the jury to find the innocent Tom Robinson guilty of rape? The obvious answer to these questions is that the seemingly wise and virtuous Atticus had such faith in the judicial system (despite the fact that it had convicted the innocent Tom Robinson), that he was convinced that a jury would see that Jem acted in self-defense and acquit him of any wrongdoing. But if we are to accept this as true, where was Atticus's faith in and devotion to the law only moments later when he was more than willing to be complicit in withholding material evidence that it was Boo Radley and not Jem who had in fact killed Bob Ewell? It begs credulity to think that Aticus might share Sheriff Tate’s concern with protecting Boo Radley from the ladies of Maycomb bringing him cake to the extent that he would be willing to jeopardize his own son’s life and liberty. Was he more apprehensive of the impact that the appearance of a cover-up of a crime allegedly committed by Jem would have on his own reputation and political career than he was for Jem’s wellbeing? The often overlooked beauty of Mockingbird is the fact that for the careful and thoughtful reader, these remain open questions. In Go Set a Watchman, Atticus is again shown to be a flawed hero. However, this time the moral imperfections of his daughter, Jean Louise (Scout in Mockingbird), are likewise brought to light. In the end, both characters' bigotry is exposed. But even more importantly, so is the bigotry of readers who fail to recognize that Lee is again challenging them to walk in another's shoes. But whereas it was relatively easy for the empathetic reader to walk in the shoes of Tom Robinson or Boo Radley, here Lee demands that readers take a more uncomfortable walk in the shoes of mid-twentieth century southerners, people who see their culture, values, and customs being decimated by the likes of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and an army of invading northern NAACP attorneys. Atticus recognizes full well both the need for and the inevitability of change. He simply objects to how the changes being rammed down their throats by what he sees as arrogant and equally bigoted northerners. Lee’s call for tolerance and acceptance in Watchman brings to mind President Abraham Lincoln’s then nearly century old admonition to a war-torn country at the end of his Second Inaugural Address: With malice toward none, and charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. (emphasis added) Of Mockingbird, Flannery O’Connor observed that “for a child's book it does all right. It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is." But critic Stephen Metcalff was not only a little kinder, he was a little closer to the mark when he stated that “To Kill a Mockingbird is a type of literature Americans are most comfortable abiding, because it makes them most abidingly comfortable with themselves.” Go Set a Watchman provides no such comfort for its readers, which likely played a role in the book originally being rejected for publication. Rather, Watchman provides a rude awakening for those Mockingbird fans who share the younger Jean Louise’s blind adoration of Atticus. Here, when Jean Louise proves unable to walk in the shoes of Calpurnia, the black servant who had raised her as a child, she is then shocked and emotionally crushed by Calpurnia’s rejection of her offer to have Atticus defend her grandson and Calpurnia’s ability to only see “white folks” when she looks at Jean Louise. In a similar manner, Lee holds up a mirror to those readers who rather comfortably felt able to walk in the shoes of a Tom Robinson or Boo Radley by laying bare their inability to take a little stroll in the shoes of an aging, flawed, and yes, bigoted mid-twentieth century southern gentleman. I suspect that despite its relative lack of literary artistry, Ms. O’Connor would be far more pleased with Watchman than she was with Mockingbird. Just as the adult Jean Louise learns to look beyond her idealized childhood image of Atticus, Lee demands the same of her reader. Accordingly, it would be a mistake to simply dismiss Watchman as yet another bitter coming of age story with the adult child suddenly recognizing the previously idealized parent’s imperfections. Jean Louise comes to terms with her own frailties, imperfections and character deficiencies by way of learning to appreciate this more fully human Atticus Finch. By virtue of Atticus’s unconditional acceptance and even celebration of the development of his daughter’s independent mind - in spite of the bitterly scathing and venomous personal attack she levies at him - the Atticus of Watchman proves to be a far wiser, loving, and indeed more heroic father than Scout’s naïve childhood image of him that was shared by most Mockingbird readers. Clearly, Watchman is not a book about redemption. However, when it is read together with Mockingbird, the two books combine to provide a powerful insight into not just the necessity for but also the difficulty of attaining tolerance, acceptance, and ultimately reconciliation - on both individual and cultural levels. Unfortunately, after having their saintly image of Atticus Finch shattered, I fear that far too many teachers who have for years or even decades devotedly taught their students to emulate his seemingly uncompromising virtues will refuse to accept the fundamental truth of a flawed Atticus as revealed by a careful reading of Mockingbird in conjunction with a reading of Watchman. They will reject the opportunity to use Watchman to teach their students just how profoundly difficult wrestling with ideas and beliefs that conflict with their own can be. In doing so, they will deny their students a unique opportunity to develop their own more informed, open-minded, and tolerant worldview, one which is required to deal with a world populated by people who are far more complex than the cookie-cutter characters presented by Scout’s innocent and youthful perspective in Mockingbird. For such teachers, walking in the shoes of another applies only to those whose shoes already fit their own feet.
Review: Don't dismiss as a publishing ploy, read Watchman to complete the Mockingbird story - As a classic literature buff and To Kill a Mockingbird fan, I was eagerly anticipating this unique publication. After hearing some of the initial commentary, I was even more eager to determine for myself what my reaction to it would be. I heard people say that this would only damage Lee’s reputation. In my opinion, it does not, but rather enhances it. Lee’s insistence of not publishing anything after Mockingbird is well known. But as Watchman was written and offered for publication first, I’m glad that it saw the light of day, as the Watchman manuscript was in essence the “Mother,” of Mockingbird, out of which it was given life. An editor evaluating Watchman, saw something else of great potential in the manuscript, and I think the literary world is thankful for that editor for ultimately giving us Mockingbird. Perhaps those editors are worth their weight in gold. Had I been the editor, I likely would have accepted the Watchman manuscript, because it is excellent writing. Perhaps I would have seen a fleshing out of the story of Scout’s childhood as a sequel. But ultimately I think it is good that Mockingbird came first because chronologically it came first. Watchman as the sequel allows us to continue the story and see what happened to these beloved characters. If Watchman had come first, I think it might have lessened the impact of Mockingbird. Setting up the “Atticus as shining hero” is critical to Watchman because it’s what drives Scout/Jean Louise to act as she does. We, like Jean Louise, are shocked and dismayed that Atticus may not live up to his own ideal, because we’ve experienced it through Mockingbird first. But it is a natural experience which Jean Louise deals with. Childhood memories tend to be idealized and simplified in a child’s eye. But as we mature, we see that there is more to the world which we saw and that it is much more complicated. Yes, Mockingbird is a great book, but with the complexity and realism added, Watchman should stand as an excellent companion piece. It adds depth to the characters whom we thought we knew so well. It also expands the conversation about race beyond the more simplistic message that we should treat everyone equally before the law. And perhaps it is more amazing considering the time period and the perspective of a white, Southern woman of the day. Perhaps the editor saw that such a book and a message from such a person as Harper Lee would have been found too abrasive and in-your-face for the reading public of its day to handle. Mockingbird is more palatable for its era. And Watchman should be able to be appreciated in this current era much better. If there had been a negative backlash with Watchman’s publication in the Fifites, would a book like Mockingbird have been accepted so widely and so well into the canon of classic American literature? I doubt so. Good for it to have unfolded as it has. Yes, the initial reaction to news of Watchman’s ultimate release, that how will the adoring public react to Atticus being portrayed with flaws and prejudices, was well founded. But I find the book doesn’t really tarnish Atticus’ image. It alters it, yes, but I find it important that we should see the more realistic portrayal of him. It only adds “character” to his character. And his portrayal wasn’t quite as negative as people feared. I didn’t find the new Atticus to be a racist, but rather a cultural “stick-in-the-mud.” His character has a lot of relevance today as we see debates of the Confederate flag being cast as either a racist symbol or a mere symbol of Southern culture. Atticus is more trying to protect what he views as the goodness of Southern culture. His age and the age in which he lived skews his view perhaps to not see that the good Southern culture that he wishes to preserve was only made possible by the diminishing of the Negro race, and keeping the status quo was the only means of maintaining what he grew up enjoying as a white resident of Alabama in the first half of the 20th century. In modern terms, this is defined as “white privilege,” and Atticus has a natural defensiveness to what he sees as threats to this privilege. Granting blacks instant full civil rights would certainly upset his apple-cart. But that doesn’t make him a racist. Jean Louise, representing the younger generation, the changing of the times, the vanguard really of new thinking for white Southerners, has the widened perspective of progressive thinking, living in New York City as a young adult in the Fifties, which allows her to see the insidiousness of the Jim Crow-era South. Her dilemma is a wonderful dramatic conflict. How do you remain proud of your good and decent Southern upbringing when you realize it is severely tainted and rotten at its core? The goodness of the decent upbringing that Jean Louise received from Atticus was tainted, not only by the enslavement of Negroes in the prior century, but also the continuation of treating them as second-class citizens and tolerated racism from others in her community in her current time. She has the right to have admiration for her upbringing which produced the goodness within her, but she is also right for abhorring the intrinsic evil contained within it, and for her eagerness to exorcise it from the culture in a swift revolution. While she is not afraid of what such a revolution would bring, Atticus is. And the conflict between them makes for high literary drama. Atticus symbolizes the good qualities of Southern culture, but his resistance to swift change mirrors the long, slow progression of change in the American South. Yes, we needed more Atticus Finches with the courage to stand up to racism when confronted with it. This would lead to cultural shifts away from tolerated racism. But we also needed more Jean Louise “Scout” Finches to move to a new level of enlightenment, where eradication of racism is the primary goal, instantly, now and forever. Hopefully this book will be taught in schools as well. It has a lot to offer.

## Features

- Author: Harper Lee.
- Publisher: Arrow
- Pages: 288
- Publication Date: 2020
- Binding: Paperback
- MSRP: 15.99
- ISBN13: 9780062409867
- ISBN: 0062409867
- Other ISBN: 9780062409874
- Other ISBN Binding: print
- Language: en
- Quality Rating: 1

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #16,792 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #329 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books) #333 in Classic Literature & Fiction #875 in Literary Fiction (Books) |
| Customer Reviews | 3.8 out of 5 stars 54,969 Reviews |

## Images

![Go Set a Watchman (Reg PB) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91YXvPqn5jL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A Necessary Companion to To Kill a Mockingbird
*by A***R on July 24, 2015*

The Enigma That Is Atticus Finch by Don Sugg “People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.” ― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird Although not nearly as artfully crafted as her classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee’s 1957 first novel, Go Set a Watchman, contains flashes of why she is considered by many to be one of the premier twentieth century American novelists. This newly published novel had been rejected for publication until Lee re-wrote it from the perspective of Jean Louise, not as an adult, but as a child ranging in age between six and eight. To Kill a Mockingbird, subsequently went on to become one of the most widely read and deeply beloved American novels and films of all time, read and viewed by millions of students and adults alike. In Watchman’s first chapter, Lee immerses the reader in the same small, imaginary, and seemingly bucolic town of Maycomb, Alabama, in a manner that even the most ardent of Yankees will embrace. However, as one might suspect, there is something rotten in the town of Maycomb. Although Watchman focuses on the same characters we learned to love in Mockingbird, albeit twenty years later, the public reaction to it has been dramatically different. Despite there having been more pre-publication anticipation of Watchman than any novel since the Harry Potter series, there has been widespread indignation and gnashing of teeth by Mockingbird fans who, upon reading Watchman, discover that their sainted hero, Atticus Finch, turns out to be a far more complex, three-dimensional human being - one with warts, secrets, prejudices, and all. One couple, who had named their son Atticus, actually went so far as to have his name legally changed after they read Watchman. The great Canadian author, Robertson Davies, once wrote “You never read the same book twice”. This is certainly true of To Kill a Mockingbird. Taking the opportunity afforded by the publication of Watchman to revisit Mockingbird from an adult perspective and engaging in a careful, more critical reading, the reader may well come away with a very different view of Atticus Finch. Looking beyond the naïve perspective of his adoring daughter, Scout, and closely examining the more subtle facts of the story, we can see what a flawed man Atticus actually is - both as an attorney and as a father. Of his three criminal cases mentioned in the book, his first two ended with his clients being hanged. In the third, his client, Tom Robinson, is wrongly convicted of raping a white woman and subsequently commits suicide-by-cop. Even though Atticus knew full well that Tom could never receive a fair trial in racist Maycomb, he negligently fails to file a pre-trial motion for change of venue. Upon being asked why, he simply mumbles an inaudible response. On cross-examination, he never asks Mayella about sending her siblings away so that she could seduce Tom, nor does he call any of them as witnesses to corroberate Tom’s story. Despite complaining in his closing argument that the prosecution provided no medical evidence that a rape had been committed, Atticus himself fails to produce any medical testimony regarding Tom's disability. Instead he relies on a cheap and ultimately unconvincing courtroom stunt that could easily have been faked. Although it makes for a compelling visual image in both the book and the film, it simply doesn’t pass for good trial practice. Thus despite Atticus’s claims to the contrary, the only apparent issue available to poor Tom on appeal would seem to have been ineffective assistance of counsel. Atticus also proves himself to be an even worse father than attorney. Although the rest of the town attends the school pageant, Atticus selfishly and neglectfully refuses to escort Scout, electing instead to stay home and pay Jem to take her in his stead. He does this knowing that Bob Ewell who had threatened revenge on Atticus for his defense of Tom Robinson was openly accusing Atticus of getting him fired from his WPA job. Ewell had also recently attempted to break into Judge Taylor’s house and repeatedly harassed Tom Robinson’s widow, Helen. Had Atticus taken Scout to the pageant himself, Bob Ewell’s attack on Jem and Scout likely would never have occurred. Even after the attack, Atticus shows no remorse for his poor decision. Incredulously, Atticus, an experienced criminal defense attorney, actually encourages Sheriff Tate to bring a homicide charge against Jem for killing Bob Ewell. He does this despite the fact that Jem’s diminutive size and broken arm would have logically precluded him from having committed the stabbing. Why didn’t Atticus wait until Jem had regained consciousness and gotten his version of the events? When Boo Radley carried the injured and unconscious Jem home, why didn’t he even ask Boo Radley what had happened? How was Jem rendered unconscious after he had supposedly mortally wounded Ewell? Why was Atticus so willing, even anxious, to bring Jem to trial for the death of the very man whose testimony convinced the jury to find the innocent Tom Robinson guilty of rape? The obvious answer to these questions is that the seemingly wise and virtuous Atticus had such faith in the judicial system (despite the fact that it had convicted the innocent Tom Robinson), that he was convinced that a jury would see that Jem acted in self-defense and acquit him of any wrongdoing. But if we are to accept this as true, where was Atticus's faith in and devotion to the law only moments later when he was more than willing to be complicit in withholding material evidence that it was Boo Radley and not Jem who had in fact killed Bob Ewell? It begs credulity to think that Aticus might share Sheriff Tate’s concern with protecting Boo Radley from the ladies of Maycomb bringing him cake to the extent that he would be willing to jeopardize his own son’s life and liberty. Was he more apprehensive of the impact that the appearance of a cover-up of a crime allegedly committed by Jem would have on his own reputation and political career than he was for Jem’s wellbeing? The often overlooked beauty of Mockingbird is the fact that for the careful and thoughtful reader, these remain open questions. In Go Set a Watchman, Atticus is again shown to be a flawed hero. However, this time the moral imperfections of his daughter, Jean Louise (Scout in Mockingbird), are likewise brought to light. In the end, both characters' bigotry is exposed. But even more importantly, so is the bigotry of readers who fail to recognize that Lee is again challenging them to walk in another's shoes. But whereas it was relatively easy for the empathetic reader to walk in the shoes of Tom Robinson or Boo Radley, here Lee demands that readers take a more uncomfortable walk in the shoes of mid-twentieth century southerners, people who see their culture, values, and customs being decimated by the likes of the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and an army of invading northern NAACP attorneys. Atticus recognizes full well both the need for and the inevitability of change. He simply objects to how the changes being rammed down their throats by what he sees as arrogant and equally bigoted northerners. Lee’s call for tolerance and acceptance in Watchman brings to mind President Abraham Lincoln’s then nearly century old admonition to a war-torn country at the end of his Second Inaugural Address: With malice toward none, and charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations. (emphasis added) Of Mockingbird, Flannery O’Connor observed that “for a child's book it does all right. It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they're reading a child's book. Somebody ought to say what it is." But critic Stephen Metcalff was not only a little kinder, he was a little closer to the mark when he stated that “To Kill a Mockingbird is a type of literature Americans are most comfortable abiding, because it makes them most abidingly comfortable with themselves.” Go Set a Watchman provides no such comfort for its readers, which likely played a role in the book originally being rejected for publication. Rather, Watchman provides a rude awakening for those Mockingbird fans who share the younger Jean Louise’s blind adoration of Atticus. Here, when Jean Louise proves unable to walk in the shoes of Calpurnia, the black servant who had raised her as a child, she is then shocked and emotionally crushed by Calpurnia’s rejection of her offer to have Atticus defend her grandson and Calpurnia’s ability to only see “white folks” when she looks at Jean Louise. In a similar manner, Lee holds up a mirror to those readers who rather comfortably felt able to walk in the shoes of a Tom Robinson or Boo Radley by laying bare their inability to take a little stroll in the shoes of an aging, flawed, and yes, bigoted mid-twentieth century southern gentleman. I suspect that despite its relative lack of literary artistry, Ms. O’Connor would be far more pleased with Watchman than she was with Mockingbird. Just as the adult Jean Louise learns to look beyond her idealized childhood image of Atticus, Lee demands the same of her reader. Accordingly, it would be a mistake to simply dismiss Watchman as yet another bitter coming of age story with the adult child suddenly recognizing the previously idealized parent’s imperfections. Jean Louise comes to terms with her own frailties, imperfections and character deficiencies by way of learning to appreciate this more fully human Atticus Finch. By virtue of Atticus’s unconditional acceptance and even celebration of the development of his daughter’s independent mind - in spite of the bitterly scathing and venomous personal attack she levies at him - the Atticus of Watchman proves to be a far wiser, loving, and indeed more heroic father than Scout’s naïve childhood image of him that was shared by most Mockingbird readers. Clearly, Watchman is not a book about redemption. However, when it is read together with Mockingbird, the two books combine to provide a powerful insight into not just the necessity for but also the difficulty of attaining tolerance, acceptance, and ultimately reconciliation - on both individual and cultural levels. Unfortunately, after having their saintly image of Atticus Finch shattered, I fear that far too many teachers who have for years or even decades devotedly taught their students to emulate his seemingly uncompromising virtues will refuse to accept the fundamental truth of a flawed Atticus as revealed by a careful reading of Mockingbird in conjunction with a reading of Watchman. They will reject the opportunity to use Watchman to teach their students just how profoundly difficult wrestling with ideas and beliefs that conflict with their own can be. In doing so, they will deny their students a unique opportunity to develop their own more informed, open-minded, and tolerant worldview, one which is required to deal with a world populated by people who are far more complex than the cookie-cutter characters presented by Scout’s innocent and youthful perspective in Mockingbird. For such teachers, walking in the shoes of another applies only to those whose shoes already fit their own feet.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Don't dismiss as a publishing ploy, read Watchman to complete the Mockingbird story
*by M***8 on July 29, 2015*

As a classic literature buff and To Kill a Mockingbird fan, I was eagerly anticipating this unique publication. After hearing some of the initial commentary, I was even more eager to determine for myself what my reaction to it would be. I heard people say that this would only damage Lee’s reputation. In my opinion, it does not, but rather enhances it. Lee’s insistence of not publishing anything after Mockingbird is well known. But as Watchman was written and offered for publication first, I’m glad that it saw the light of day, as the Watchman manuscript was in essence the “Mother,” of Mockingbird, out of which it was given life. An editor evaluating Watchman, saw something else of great potential in the manuscript, and I think the literary world is thankful for that editor for ultimately giving us Mockingbird. Perhaps those editors are worth their weight in gold. Had I been the editor, I likely would have accepted the Watchman manuscript, because it is excellent writing. Perhaps I would have seen a fleshing out of the story of Scout’s childhood as a sequel. But ultimately I think it is good that Mockingbird came first because chronologically it came first. Watchman as the sequel allows us to continue the story and see what happened to these beloved characters. If Watchman had come first, I think it might have lessened the impact of Mockingbird. Setting up the “Atticus as shining hero” is critical to Watchman because it’s what drives Scout/Jean Louise to act as she does. We, like Jean Louise, are shocked and dismayed that Atticus may not live up to his own ideal, because we’ve experienced it through Mockingbird first. But it is a natural experience which Jean Louise deals with. Childhood memories tend to be idealized and simplified in a child’s eye. But as we mature, we see that there is more to the world which we saw and that it is much more complicated. Yes, Mockingbird is a great book, but with the complexity and realism added, Watchman should stand as an excellent companion piece. It adds depth to the characters whom we thought we knew so well. It also expands the conversation about race beyond the more simplistic message that we should treat everyone equally before the law. And perhaps it is more amazing considering the time period and the perspective of a white, Southern woman of the day. Perhaps the editor saw that such a book and a message from such a person as Harper Lee would have been found too abrasive and in-your-face for the reading public of its day to handle. Mockingbird is more palatable for its era. And Watchman should be able to be appreciated in this current era much better. If there had been a negative backlash with Watchman’s publication in the Fifites, would a book like Mockingbird have been accepted so widely and so well into the canon of classic American literature? I doubt so. Good for it to have unfolded as it has. Yes, the initial reaction to news of Watchman’s ultimate release, that how will the adoring public react to Atticus being portrayed with flaws and prejudices, was well founded. But I find the book doesn’t really tarnish Atticus’ image. It alters it, yes, but I find it important that we should see the more realistic portrayal of him. It only adds “character” to his character. And his portrayal wasn’t quite as negative as people feared. I didn’t find the new Atticus to be a racist, but rather a cultural “stick-in-the-mud.” His character has a lot of relevance today as we see debates of the Confederate flag being cast as either a racist symbol or a mere symbol of Southern culture. Atticus is more trying to protect what he views as the goodness of Southern culture. His age and the age in which he lived skews his view perhaps to not see that the good Southern culture that he wishes to preserve was only made possible by the diminishing of the Negro race, and keeping the status quo was the only means of maintaining what he grew up enjoying as a white resident of Alabama in the first half of the 20th century. In modern terms, this is defined as “white privilege,” and Atticus has a natural defensiveness to what he sees as threats to this privilege. Granting blacks instant full civil rights would certainly upset his apple-cart. But that doesn’t make him a racist. Jean Louise, representing the younger generation, the changing of the times, the vanguard really of new thinking for white Southerners, has the widened perspective of progressive thinking, living in New York City as a young adult in the Fifties, which allows her to see the insidiousness of the Jim Crow-era South. Her dilemma is a wonderful dramatic conflict. How do you remain proud of your good and decent Southern upbringing when you realize it is severely tainted and rotten at its core? The goodness of the decent upbringing that Jean Louise received from Atticus was tainted, not only by the enslavement of Negroes in the prior century, but also the continuation of treating them as second-class citizens and tolerated racism from others in her community in her current time. She has the right to have admiration for her upbringing which produced the goodness within her, but she is also right for abhorring the intrinsic evil contained within it, and for her eagerness to exorcise it from the culture in a swift revolution. While she is not afraid of what such a revolution would bring, Atticus is. And the conflict between them makes for high literary drama. Atticus symbolizes the good qualities of Southern culture, but his resistance to swift change mirrors the long, slow progression of change in the American South. Yes, we needed more Atticus Finches with the courage to stand up to racism when confronted with it. This would lead to cultural shifts away from tolerated racism. But we also needed more Jean Louise “Scout” Finches to move to a new level of enlightenment, where eradication of racism is the primary goal, instantly, now and forever. Hopefully this book will be taught in schools as well. It has a lot to offer.

### ⭐⭐⭐ Far more nuanced than critics have said and worth reading
*by D***N on August 4, 2015*

With all that's been said about Harper Lee's new (second? First? Found? First draft?) book, Go Set a Watchman, it's been hard to form a fully realized opinion. Even before I had opened my copy, social media exploded with denunciations. Still, with that depressing prelude--who wants to read something that is the subject of a public pillory?--I read it anyway. To be honest, I was disappointed. I passed judgement on the novel as a mishmash of ideas, heavy on dialogue and light on action. Worst, it committed the cardinal sin of messing Atticus Finch, a character I cherished. In short, my knee jerk response was not very different from anyone else's. And yet, since finishing a week ago, I haven't been able to let the book go. There was something unsettling to me about how blithely the publication of the novel had been perceived as a greedy money grab by the publisher. The book isn't horrible, though it is a little disappointing, but the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to understand what I had read. A friend opined that in future years the two books (To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman) would be read together as part of literature classes, and it got me wanting to understand better. And so, I've begun to evolve my opinions about Go Set a Watchman. It is better--no, it is more nuanced--than I initially judged it. More, Atticus is perhaps more nuanced than To Kill a Mockingbird. It is without a doubt worth a read. Review: Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee Harper Lee A little about where the book comes from. According to the publisher, the book was found in Lee’s archives, where she had forgotten that it still existed. In a press release from HarperCollins, Lee explained: "In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called Go Set a Watchman. It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout's childhood, persuaded me to write a novel from the point of view of the young Scout. I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn't realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years." Needless to say, there are plenty who doubt the authenticity of the statement or Lee’s willingness to step into the spotlight. New Republic’s William Giraldi is typical of this group: "Those crafty touches—“much thought and hesitation,” “my dear friend,” “people I trust”—are trying a tad too hard, wouldn’t you say? The spotlight-shunning Lee is “amazed” that she will once again be subjected to a freshet of attention, the very soaking she’d organized her life to avoid. The only thing amazing here is the expectation that literate people would be hoodwinked by attributed language that bears hallmarks of subterfuge." To_Kill_a_MockingbirdYeah. No pulling punches there. Denunciations range from accusations that her agent/attorney bypassed Lee (plenty of snarky comments about the corporate greed of publishing CEOs), that she is too old and senile to know what she's doing, that the book was never really lost in the first place, and, finally, that publication is a coup due to the recent passing of Lee’s longtime caretaker and counsel. It doesn’t hurt that since Lee had a stroke in 2007 she is said to have trouble seeing and has almost completely lost her hearing. From there it’s not much of a leap for naysayers to dismiss Go Set a Watchman as the greedy exploitation of an aged and famous writer. The problem? For every denunciation, there is also evidence to the contrary. No less than the New York Times quoted family and friends from Lee’s community that claimed that they had seen her recently and that she was a spry and alert as ever. "Other people who have seen Ms. Lee more recently say that she is physically frail but completely lucid. Mr. Nurnberg described her as “feisty” when he visited her this month. He said that while she was “indeed hesitant” to publish the book, she had been persuaded by a close circle of people who had read it and assured her that it stood up to her monumental first book. "Wayne Flynt, an Alabama author and historian who has been close friends with Ms. Lee for more than a decade, said she was as sharp as ever when he visited her on Monday, quoting lines from “Macbeth.” "“I don’t think that anybody that says she’s demented has been to see her in the last 10 years,” Mr. Flynt said. “The problem may be that almost nobody goes to see her, almost nobody gets in. She’s such a private person.”" zeplinstumblrcom (1)Nevertheless, as Jonathan Haidt argues in The Righteous Mind, we are not scientists seeking truth, but lawyers seeking supporting evidence of our theses. Or, as the slightly more well-known Taylor Swift puts it, haters gonna hate. People find the evidence to fit the thesis they want. In practice, it didn’t take the internet long to jump to absolute dismissal of the entire book. Reducio ad absurdum: the book is an absolute mess and, according to all too many folk who have yet to read the book themselves, should not be read. To be fair, the one person I know who did read the book was disappointed. Writers don’t tell him how to do his job, and so he won’t tell writers how to do his, he said. Fair enough. He read and evaluated it for himself. Which leads to an important point: the difference between reading and passing judgement versus taking your opinion from what the internet mob tells you. Doing the homework--reading the book--is just too hard. This isn’t an idle gripe, either, or me playing a book snob card. Taking the judgments of the social media jury cum mob as legit is a real and harmful effect on the intellectual life of the average American. American intellectual life shouldn't be rooted in the ivory towers of higher education. On the contrary, healthy democracy sees the working class self-informing and educating, reading and discussing. Sure, elite academics, intellectuals and writers have a place, and I don’t mean to diminish their role. But regular people need to participate, need to engage, and need to decide for themselves what is worthy. If we only “reshare” across social media ad infinitum the gilded opinions of those smarter than ourselves, we are not only selling ourselves short, but also reducing our ability to pass informed judgement. Go read the book yourself. This is Harper freaking Lee we’re talking about. Even if the book is a failure, the woman produced what is arguably the most famous, most loved, and most memorable American novel of the last century. Something can be learned from such a mind. There'll never another To Kill a Mockingbird, but something can still be gleaned from Go Set a Watchman. So...what about the book itself? A failure? A first draft? A worthy successor to Lee’s legacy? Let’s look. First off, caveat: as a book reviewer: I’m no Allan Bloom, James Wood or Adam Kirsch. Take this with a grain of salt. From the minute I started Go Set a Watchman, I quickly fell into the writing. Lee’s style is as drawling and comfortable as the accents of the Deep South cast that fills its pages. And yet, the dialogue is often trite, the story jumbled, and the plot occasionally incongruous. Overall, it still feels like a first draft…which is exactly what the Lee’s editor thought when Lee shopped it around mid-century New York. And yet, there’s more to it than can be dismissed with vague complaints about the destruction of the Atticus Finch character as a bigot (Michiko Kakutani says that readers will be shocked by Atticus’s “affiliating with raving anti-integration, anti-black crazies, and the reader shares [Scout's] horror and confusion” and indeed, initially at least, this was my reaction). Sure, there is racism, but it's more the McGuffin of the story, as Jason Pettus portrays it in his review, than the theme. So back to my experience. After flying through the first two-thirds of the novel, I got bogged down and slogged through to the end. Go Set a Watchman takes place decades after To Kill a Mockingbird and indeed, it is the flashbacks in the book that Lee cribbed for the earlier published novel. In this iteration, Atticus has grown old, joined the local citizens committee that is synonymous with the Dixiecrat groups of the era that passed Jim Crow laws, forced legislatures to raise the Confederate battle flag over state capitals, and generally were responsible for much of the racism that seems so out of place today. Still, his racism feels circumstantial, a factor of his era, and if he is a bigot, he is the outlier among his people, making the best of the bad. And yet, there’s something in how Atticus is portrayed that falls short of the poisonous bigot that arm chair liberals denounce. Atticus is just not that simple, though it took me a bit of time to put my finger on why. Pettus’ review, again: "[T]here were plenty of reasons for Southerners to get behind racist organizations like these back then besides just pure racism; take Scout's enlightened fiancée, for example, who joins the citizens' council for the same reason he might join the Rotary Club, because he's a rising young lawyer and to not do so would damage his career. Or take Atticus himself, who as we learn by the end of the book hasn't really changed his stance towards black people from how he felt twenty years ago -- his joining the citizens' council has almost nothing to do with hating a man for the color of his skin, and almost everything to do with his obsessive belief in state rights versus a big federal government, and with his personal identity as a Jeffersonian liberal who believes that people need to "earn" the privileges of a free democracy by being informed, conscientious citizens who contribute to the greater good, not to have those privileges ram-rodded down everyone's throats by a meddling organization like the NAACP." Atticus’ concerns aren’t about racism so much as the interference of outsiders who don’t know or understand the local nuances, let alone have a vested interest in the future of the communities they parachute in to change. Atticus is concerned about the impact on the Constitution, on personal liberties, etc., in the “noble but misguided name of forcing "equality" on a situation that politically and economically can't handle it, complaints that even the urban liberal Scout sometimes agrees with over the course of the book[,]” argues Pettus. Yes, Atticus still behaves like a racist but, and this has been largely ignored, he would still be the first to defend a black man falsely accused. Which is entirely consistent with Atticus Finch that we all know and admire. If Lee has a theme here, it may be that life is much more complicated than the more simplistic black hat/white hat world she portrays in To Kill a Mockingbird. Could Lee have released the Go Set a Watchman right now for reasons other than the money (and let’s just all agree that the publisher doesn’t need other motives)? Could she be looking back at her legacy, recognizing that the simplistic morality of To Kill a Mockingbird is an unsatisfactory depiction of her view of the world? Judge for yourself. Pick up Go Set a Watchman, read it and consider if it isn’t more about the complexities of human relationships, of memory and of the passage of time than about racism and justice. It may not be the book that I wanted or expected, but I wonder if perhaps the judgments levied are perhaps too simplistic.

---

## Why Shop on Desertcart?

- 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016
- 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories
- 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price
- 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members)
- 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection
- ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews

**Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/27351051-go-set-a-watchman-reg-pb](https://www.desertcart.be/products/27351051-go-set-a-watchman-reg-pb)

---

*Product available on Desertcart Belgium*
*Store origin: BE*
*Last updated: 2026-05-25*