Really
exciting news today from the world of American literature. Harper Lee, who
never published anything besides the classic "To Kill a Mockingbird", is
coming out with a "sequel". The back story here is amazing.
She
wrote a novel in the 1950's, entitled "Go Set a Watchman", featuring
Scout as an adult. Her editor's response was to say that he/she liked
the flashbacks to Scout as a young child, and maybe Ms. Lee should write
another novel about that, which she did.
She
says she thought the original manuscript was lost, but her friend and
lawyer recently discovered it among her papers, and now it is to be
published!! Amazing. And amazing that Harper is even still alive, but
she is, at 88, though impaired.
These
stories of writers who only write one book and nothing more fascinate
me. One thinks, of course, of J. D. Salinger and "A Catcher in the Rye".
When I was living in Lawrence, Kansas, in the early '70's, some of us
counter-culture types were quite taken with Frederick Exley's great
book, "A Fan's Notes", and we eagerly awaited his sequel, "Pages from a
Cold Island". However, the sequel was a complete bust. Exley had said
all he had to say in his first novel; and, in retrospect, it was really
only in the first half of that novel, as the part after he underwent his
electric shock treatments is not nearly as engrossing as the first part
of the book.