“Go Set a Watchman has been the most anticipated novel of the year, if not the century.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
There has been much debate about whether this book is a prequel, a sequel or a first draft. I don’t think it’s any of those things; more a companion piece to To Kill A Mockingbird. The characters are familiar, there are some passages in TKAM that come straight from Go Set A Watchman, but it tells a different story.
In GSAW, Jean Louise (Scout) is now 26 years old and living in New York, she goes back home to Maycomb County for her 2 weeks annual holiday. During her stay she makes a horrible discovery that makes her physically sick: her beloved father, Atticus, is not who she thought he was. After finding a blatently racist pamphlet amongst Atticus’s things, she follows him to a citizens’ council meeting which has been called to oppose desegregation, and she doesn’t like what she sees or hears.