The Legacy of Harper Lee/Why “To Kill a Mockingbird” was beautiful fiction but “Go Set a Watchman” was more honest.

Last week’s death of Harper Lee reignited the controversy about legacy of her brilliant first novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” against the backdrop of “Go Set a Watchman,” a primordial version of her classic, but written in the contemporary moment of the late 1950’s.

While To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAMB) remains a rare gem of American literature, both hailed by critics with consistent strong sales to the present day, “Go Set a Watchman,” even for all of its flaws, represents a more honest portrayal of small town mores when it came to race and class.

TKAMB is found in the bookshelf of every high school student, probably next to an equally dog-eared copy of its Cliff Notes.  It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and was fast-tracked into an equally classic movie a year later which starred Gregory Peck.  The lyrical quality offered a worldview seen through the eyes of young Scout, the daughter of the widowed Atticus as he was assigned the unwinnable case of the defense of Tom Robinson. The film version contained so many classic scenes that the book and the movie were fused into one unit that it would be heresy for anybody but Gregory Peck’s baritone as Atticus Finch to offer a moral lesson about life in small town Depression era Maycomb, Alabama.

To earn this LBJ/RFK button from the 1964 election, answer the Big Question at the end of this post

Then Harper Lee disappeared into the woodwork, not as a recluse, but was seen often throughout Monroeville and Manhattan. Her one book defined a generation and her hometown of Monroeville, Alabama celebrated her success in the same way Carmel, California embraced John Steinbeck. There were no interviews after 1964, only rumors that she might be quietly writing for posthumous publication. Worse, there were unfortunate comments from Truman Capote (who served as the basis as Dill) who suggested that he was the true author of TKAMB and Harper Lee’s silence only gave these rumors a life of their own. However after penning a classic, perhaps Harper Lee felt that no follow up could do it justice.

As successive illnesses robbed Harper Lee of her skills and as questions arose about the status of literary estate, it was announced that a whole new novel about life in Maycomb was discovered. “Go Set a Watchman” was released last summer with a literary build up not seen in a generation. Then the critics pounded it mercilessly.  Unlike TKAMB, which was heavily edited by Tay Hohoff, “Go Set a Watchman” only received a light edit and was released into the marketplace without the care and nurturing that normally comes with that kind of literary event.

So what happened?

The writing in “Go Set a Watchman” was a jumble and the pacing lacked a consistency but it was the portrayal of an older and more racist Atticus Finch that led the howls of protest.  No longer was Finch the idealistic attorney who faced down a local lynch mob and fought the losing battle to keep Tom Robinson out of jail, but it appeared he had feet of clay.  This Atticus Finch was not somebody who inspired a generation to attend law school and fight the good fight.  Instead this Finch lived in the late 1950’s a time when the South was struggling to adjust to a new world of Civil Rights, Brown vs. the Board of Education, and the judicial activism of the NAACP.

Sadly this Finch stood for the past and squarely on the wrong side of history. In fact, it’s fair to suggest that the comments surrounding the literary failings of “Go Set a Watchman” were all subtext to the idea that Atticus Finch was desecrated by its creator, even though this was written long before TKAMB was written, edited, and published.

In TKAMB, we never see what happens to literary characters like Atticus once the final chapter concludes but there were real costs involved when people pushed back hard against Jim Crow. In the final courtroom scene, Finch completely denuded the prosecution’s case, humiliated Bob Ewell, and tried to force an all-white male jury to look at some unpleasant truths. However in reality, those who stood up against Jim Crow found that their businesses were ruined and people were forced to flee for their lives. When the White Citizen Council came to Jimmy and Roslyn Carter’s peanut farm in Plains, Carter refused to work with them and the couple worried that they would face financial ruin. Federal Judge Frank Johnson, who ruled on so many important civil rights cases, faced social isolation and a continuous string of death threats until he retired.

In 1964, the parents of Miss Mississippi were forced to flee for their lives when they hosted a member of SNCC at their home. Journalist Hodding Carter Sr. wrote that “crosses were burned in their yard and their pet dog was killed. Once high on the list of social elite, the family fell off this list for inviting visiting civil rights workers into their home to share a meal and have a conversation.” Moral victory aside, Atticus Finch lost the case but we never discover the blowback to his career due to the vigorous defense of Tom Robinson. We never know if he was defeated in the upcoming election as a state legislator, lost his practice as his clients fled for safe harbor, or faced personal ruin.

While Jim Crow is present throughout the pages of the book (and the scenes of the movie), the architects of Jim Crow within TKAMB’s Maycomb reflect an idealized version of the Old South. The personage of Atticus Finch would pass for a liberal in Manhattan circles but would be seen as a dangerous radical in Maycomb, Alabama. Many local Southern sheriffs, who were major power players in many of these communities and enforced the Jim Crow color line, often administered their own form of justice with brutal efficiency.  Odious types like Jim Clark in Selma, Bull Connor in Montgomery (where he served as Commissioner of Public Safety), and Lawrence Rainey (who served as Sheriff in the Mississippi community where four Civil Rights Workers were murdered) were crossed at great peril.

Meanwhile in Maycomb, Sheriff Heck Tate is easily tricked by some of the local townspeople who wish to lynch Tom Robinson. They distract him and send him on a wild goose chase.  However, the ugliness of Jim Crow in Maycomb is left to Bob Ewell, the White Trash patriarch who spends his welfare checks on alcohol, intimidates the Robinson family, and spits in the face of Atticus Finch.

As somebody with family in the South as well as a wife who has a background that is steeped in Southern heritage, it is easy to see what we want to see.  However, for all of its flaws, “Go Set a Watchman” is far more honest portrayal of 1950’s Southern life than TKAMB’s Depression era existence.  In TKAMB, the goodness of Atticus Finch is never questioned while the vile racial hatred of the Ewells is plain to the naked eye. Atticus Finch in TKAMB represented our best selves but Finch in “Go Set a Watchman” represented a cautionary tale of somebody who fell short of his Scout’s expectations and is ensnared by the racial hatred of the time. While Jim Crow was midwifed by slavery, racism was not the sole invention of the Old South but was as American as apple pie; race remains a subject that we all continually grapple with as our national mosaic evolves.

As the complicated story of how “Go Set a Watchman” came to the bookshelves is more clearly understood, the book itself will fade into the shadows and will little impact on the literary importance of TKAMB.  However, one has to wonder about the impact “Go Set a Watchman” might have had within literary circles had the book had the same careful editorial nurturing experienced by TKAMB.

Now that would have been a great book to read.

The Big Question: If Lyndon Johnson had not been able to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights act of 1965 and the Open Housing Act of 1968, what kind of nation would we have today? Send your answers to Bob.mcbarton@comcast.net

 

 

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