arrayed along the shifting precipice between. This is the appeal of the book, which owes its success to a stark delineation of good and evil, Atticus and the woefully mistreated Tom Robinson on the one side and the Ewells on the other, with the townspeople of Maycomb - a stand-in for Lee’s hometown of Monroeville, Ala. The Atticus of “To Kill a Mockingbird” was an icon, an archetype, a figure out of myth. That may be true, but it was, first, the expression of a single writer’s vision, and it is that and only that to which Lee has responsibility. The novel has been called an American classic, a work that helped catalyze a nation’s thinking about segregation and race. Lippincott in 1960,” the publisher declared in a news release, “Harper Lee set aside ‘Go Set a Watchman’ and never returned to it.”Įven more, I think, is a confusion over what a book or author owes us, which has been especially prevalent in regard to “To Kill a Mockingbird.” “After ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ was published by J.B. Since “Go Set a Watchman” was announced in February, it has presented the book as an autonomous work. So why the uproar? In part, it has to do with the book’s publisher, HarperCollins. Either way, Atticus did not betray anything, least of all his principles instead, this character became increasingly enlightened over time.
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