![\"stampede\"](\"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/stampede.jpg\")
<\/a>2) When it comes to my favorite Southern writers, over the years I’ve preferred reading Tennessee Williams, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, Dorothy Allison, Truman Capote, Carson McCullers, Alice Walker, and Faulkner.\u00a0 Yes, Lee won a Pulitzer–but even though her classic book is wildly popular, it’s not at the top of my personal list.<\/p>\n3) The circumstances around the “discovery” of the book get murkier all the time and it’s increasingly probable that Go Set a Watchman<\/em> is really an early draft of To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> and not actually a “new novel<\/a>.”\u00a0 Lee’s own previous comments<\/a> about her working relationship with her editor make that pretty clear<\/a>.<\/p>\n 6) If Lee weren’t famous, the manuscript (however it had been discovered) wouldn’t have been anything more than an archival curiosity.\u00a0 It’s something a scholar might have eventually published with “apparatus”: notes, timeline, an introduction, etc.\u00a0 But the Rupert Murdoch Money Machine has helped turn it into a global event instead.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1) As a longtime print, radio, and on-line reviewer, I’ve always recoiled at massive media hype.\u00a0I prefer to champion small press books and books that fly under the radar–and they make me more curious. It annoys me to see a book blitzed so relentlessly, and when a PR stampede roars into life, I’m suspicious and … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[353,32,24,3],"tags":[357,355,356,359,360,358,354],"class_list":["post-1276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harper-lee","category-promotion","category-publicity","category-publishing","tag-go-set-a-watchman","tag-harper-lee","tag-harpercollins","tag-publishing-greed","tag-ruper-murdoch","tag-sloppy-publishing","tag-to-kill-a-mockingbird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1276"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1407,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1276\/revisions\/1407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>4) It’s unlikely that aged, infirm Lee had anything to do with publishing the manuscript.\u00a0 Her own sister was quoted<\/a> by Lee’s biographer as saying, \u201cPoor Nelle Harper can’t see and can’t hear and will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence.\u201d\u00a0 Where’s the proof she would want us reading what she’d kept private for so long?<\/p>\n<\/a>5) Reading about Go Set a Watchman<\/em> and reading excerpts (including Chapter One in The Wall Street Journal<\/em>) hasn’t made it seem appealing.\u00a0 That includes Adam Gopnik <\/a>in The New Yorker<\/em> quoting a drab passage I’m supposed to find “lovely.”\u00a0 None of the reviewers has convinced me it’s a better or more interesting book than To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/a>7) HarperCollins publisher Jonathan Burnham said<\/a> that \u201cWe [only] gave the book a very light copy edit.\u201d\u00a0 So Harper Lee is such a genius that she can go right into print without real editing?\u00a0 That smacks of opportunism, sloppiness, or dishonesty.\u00a0 I don’t want any part of a book published in such circumstances. I might, however, watch Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> again to see if it holds up or if–like the novel–it’s just something that meant a lot to me in my adolescence….<\/p>\n<\/a>Lev Raphael is the author of 25 books in genres from memoir to mystery which you can find on Amazon.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n