Go Set a Watchman- Harper Lee

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Sequel to the best-selling book To Kill a Mockingbird, Go Set a Watchman is a story of a 26-year-old Jean Louise Finch who is now an eccentric woman and loves to have her way with things. The book begins with Jean Louise reminiscing about her family while she’s travelling back home to Maycomb, Alabama from New York City. Her 72-year-old, kind and wise father and role model, Atticus Finch has been reduced to a medium sized man due to arthritis. As Jean Louise settles back home with her impossible aunt, Alexandra Finch Hancock and Atticus, she realizes Maycomb has slowly changed and so have the residents of Maycomb. She comes across a pamphlet that is labelled as “The Black Plague” with a drawing of an anthropophagus Negro. Disgusted and shocked with the contents of the same, Jean Louise realizes Maycomb is going through turmoil and she has been left behind. She manages to sneak into the Maycomb Citizens’ Council Meeting and is horrified to witness the thoughts and ideas the “white trash” of Maycomb believes in. What manages to break her completely is that Atticus, her role-model and idol along with Hank, the man she loves are one of the staunchest members of the racist Council. Thus, begins her inner war as she realizes everything that her father has taught her has been a lie and she was born with a defect- she is color blind and sees no difference between blacks and whites. Jean Louise loses her faith in the residents of Maycomb as she realizes the disturbing truth- they are racist and discriminatory. She is met with hostility and is not welcomed by Calpurnia, the black cook who raised Jean Louise. As she witnesses her family do the exact opposite of what they taught her, she is reminded of her childhood and begins to question everything she had learned as a child. The book is an amalgamation of humor, anguish, betrayal and liberation as experienced by the 26-year-old Jean Louise. Lee manages to take the reader on a transformative journey of a young woman who is in the process of building her own conscience while all her beliefs are shattered. 

 

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