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Much excitement, many questions about sequel to 'Mockingbird'

Harper Lee, author of the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, was the number-one nonsponsored Twitter trend Tuesday in Philadelphia, and top 5 around the nation.

Harper Lee, author of the beloved novel To Kill a Mockingbird, was the number-one nonsponsored Twitter trend Tuesday in Philadelphia, and top 5 around the nation.

It's not every day you see that. A classic author? Killing it on social media?

There's a reason. On Tuesday, publisher HarperCollins announced it would publish Lee's novel Go Set a Watchman, a sequel to Mockingbird, on July 14.

Big news to the millions who have read the book or seen the 1962 film version. The social-media buzz testifies to a literary work with staying power.

Oprah Winfrey e-mailed USA Today: "I couldn't be happier if my name was Scout." Joan Lunden tweeted: "Can't wait!" Lindsay Deutsch tweeted: "The Mockingbird Livessssssssss." Entertainment Weekly writer Anthony Breznican tweeted: "[T]hank you Harper Lee for giving us another story. What else is there to say besides that? Glad to see through your eyes again." Tena Ezzeddine, a TV reporter in Los Angeles, tweeted: "INCREDIBLE! So excited! I'm without words." Julia Reinstein of Washington tweeted: "There's going to be a #ToKillAMockingbird sequel. Excuse me while I go cry profusely."

There's a dark side, with plenty to reserve judgment about. It's not clear what we'll see in July. Will it be the original manuscript or something touched up or rewritten? Lee's sister Alice, her legal defender and protector, died last year at 103, and by some accounts, Lee herself, now 88 and reputedly ill, is little able to understand legal agreements. Madeleine Davis of Jezebel worries that the "intensely private author" may be "vulnerable to people who may not have her best interests at heart."

'Incredibly exciting'

Still, in virtual and real worlds, the main mood was celebratory. "The news that we'll get a second book from Harper Lee - a sequel to Mockingbird, no less - is incredibly exciting," said Kevin Grauke, author and associate professor of English at La Salle University. "And it promises to be the American literary event of the year, and probably the decade." 

Lee was 34 when Mockingbird was published in 1960. It won the Pulitzer Prize and soon became an equally beloved film, earning actor Gregory Peck, who played iconic lawyer Atticus Finch, an Oscar for best actor.

Watchman will be only Lee's second published novel, her first major fiction in half a century. "I hadn't realized it had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it," Lee said in a statement. ". . . I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years."

Rumors have long simmered of a sequel to Mockingbird, a book even people who "don't think of themselves as readers" have read and loved. Maybe they saw the movie and went to the novel. Maybe they read it in school. Or a friend loved it. Or their parents made them.

Many parents and children have had an experience like that of David Learn, a native of Penn Township in Chester County, who homeschooled his daughter Eowen. Mockingbird "led the two of us to explore the black experience in America the rest of that school year," he said, "a theme we continue to explore and discuss four years later, when my daughter is now a 10th grader. . . ."

Set it aside

It turns out Lee finished Watchman in the 1950s and set it aside. In fact, a draft of what became Watchman actually came before Mockingbird. Tay Hohoff, an editor at J.B. Lippincott, saw an early manuscript, narrated by a grown woman named Scout Finch. But Hohoff was drawn, like millions since, to the voice of young Scout, presented originally in flashbacks. She pressed Lee to rewrite the whole thing from young Scout's perspective. That became Mockingbird.

Where Mockingbird is set in 1930s Alabama, Watchman is set 20 years later, in the midst of the 1950s civil-rights movement. In her statement, Lee said Watchman did, indeed, feature the grown Scout, now living in Manhattan. She visits her father, Atticus, in the book.

Much is the excitement, many the questions. Isn't there some risk here of sullying a golden brand? Grauke said, "We'll all hope that the new book is just as wonderful . . . but what if it's not? What will happen to the nearly mythical status of both Lee and Mockingbird? Regardless, our notion of both her and her work will never quite be the same again."

John Domini, author and columnist, has taught Mockingbird in class and said, "You've got to respect the reach, the staying power of Harper Lee's accomplishment - and the way she can, even now, surprise us." But he warned that publishing Watchman runs the risk of "mere nostalgia."

Philadelphia novelist Andrew Ervin acknowledged "some slight risk involved," but "I can't imagine anything that should or can change our feelings for To Kill a Mockingbird."

Said Learn: "I would hate for it to bring down Mockingbird by association if it's not as well-written." He then added: "We'll be buying it as soon as we can."

215-854-4406 @jtimpane