Go Set a Watchman backlash for turning Atticus Finch into a racist

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Go Set a Watchman is due to be published this week - and plot is revealed
Horrified fans discovered that goodly Atticus Finch is a racist in new book
Is a Ku Klux Klan member and a segregationist in '50s Alabama
Some have said they won't buy the book and refuse to read it
Others have declared their childhoods 'ruined' in light of new information
Critics were divided over the new book, which was called both 'amateurish' and 'fascinating'

Published: 00:31 EST, 12 July 2015 | Updated: 17:00 EST, 12 July 2015

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Dismayed Harper Lee fans have vented their frustration at learning that Atticus Finch, the goodly lawyer of To Kill a Mockingbird, is a racist in the author's long-awaited second novel.

Some declared that their childhoods had been ruined by the revelation - which some staunch believers said they will refuse to read the new book, Go Set a Watchman, by way of protest.

Waves of grief and outrage were unleashed after literary reviewers who were sent advance copies of the book revealed Lee's storyline shows Atticus's moral integrity compromised by old age.

In Mockingbird, a high school staple beloved by millions, Atticus is a heroic figure who stands up for a black Alabamian villager wrongly accused of rape around the 1930s.

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Despair: Many Harper Lee fans were aghast to find out that Atticus Finch, portrayed above by Gregory Peck in the 1962 film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, is a racist

Tarnished? Atticus, an upstanding a principled lawyer in Mockingbird, degenerates into a segregationist in the decades between it and Watchman

Old and new: Watchman, left, was written before Mockingbird, right, but is set two decades afterwards. Some have said they won't read it because they don't want to know about Atticus's downfall

However, Watchman, set in the '50s, shows Atticus espousing segregationist views - and even joining the local branc of the Ku Klux Klan.

Describing his reaction to the New York Times, Jamie Harding, a 54-year-old from Brimingham, Alabam, said: 'We grew up looking up to this character, and a lot of my friends are saying: "I’m not reading it, I want Atticus to remain the Atticus that I adore."'

ATTICUS SHRUGGED: SHOCKING LINES SPOKEN BY ONCE-REVERED LAWYER IN NEW NOVEL GO SET A WATCHMAN

'Do you want your children going to a school that’s been dragged down to accommodate Negro children?'

'The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people.'

'Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters? Do you want them in our world?'

Atticus calls pro-segregation councils: 'a sort of warning to the Negroes for them not to be in such a hurry.'

'Now think about this... What would happen if all the Negroes in the South were suddenly given full civil rights? I’ll tell you, There’d be another Reconstruction. Would you want your state governments run by people who don’t know how to run ’em?... We’re outnumbered, you know.'

Et tu, Scout?

Even though Scout, the main character of both Lee novels, is more enlightened than her father, she expresses shocking sentiments towards black people even while speaking in their defense:

'We’ve agreed that they are backward, that they’re illiterate, that they’re dirty and comical and shiftless and no good, they’re infants and they’re stupid, some of them, but we haven’t agreed on one thing and we never will. You deny that they’re human.'

On social media, other would-be readers were less reserved.

Kelly Kotor, of Saint Clairesville, Ohio, wrote: 'I can’t handle that Atticus finch, the unofficial patron saint of attorneys everywhere, is now a flipping racist hater'.

Harper Lee's home town excited for second novel (archive)

Late release: Lee, 89, pictured above at a press event for the book, once swore never to publish another book. But she had an apparent change of mind after the Go Set a Watchman manuscript was discovered this year

Another, from Saint George, Utah, wrote that he is: 'Conflicted about reading Watchman now... Idk [I don't know] if I can handle Atticus as a racist.'

Scott Simon, a radio host on NPR who lives in Washington, D.C., reacted with half-serious denial, as did many others.

He said: 'I think it's likely the Atticus she created in Mockingbird isn't same character at all, just same name. Novelists do that.'

If Atticus Finch being a racist is making you upset just remember we will never truly own anything and life is fleeting
— Jaya Saxena (@jayasax) July 11, 2015

"Atticus can't be racist!" Well, he could've been a flying purple people eater, if Lee wanted. He's not real, but we forget. I forget.
— Amanda Nelson (@ImAmandaNelson) July 11, 2015

Jamie Harding, a charity worker who lives in Alabama, said: 'Atticus Finch as a segregationist? It's like finding out Santa Claus beats his reindeer.'

A small-scale boycott also appeared to be emerging, with several more people that they would refuse to read the book on principle in light of the revelations.

Critics were divided on the book - though all seemed to agree that Atticus's descent and disappointment was 'fascinating'.

Michiko Kakutani, for the New York Times, wrote: 'How could the saintly Atticus - described early in the book in much the same terms as he is in Mockingbird - suddenly emerge as a bigot?

SPOILER Atticus Finch is super-racist; your childhood is ruined: http://t.co/Pj69H8qE0S
— Anna Mehler Paperny (@amp6) July 10, 2015

I can’t handle that Atticus finch, the unofficial patron saint of attorneys everywhere, is now a flipping racist hater.
— Kelly Kotur (@KellyKotur) July 12, 2015

'Suggestions about changing times and the polarizing effects of the civil rights movement seem insufficient when it comes to explaining such a radical change, and the reader, like Scout, cannot help feeling baffled and distressed.'

In the Wall Street Journal, Sam Sacks wrote: '...for the millions who hold that novel dear, Go Set a Watchman will be a test of their tolerance and capacity for forgiveness.

'At the peak of her outrage, Jean Louise tells her father, “You’ve cheated me in a way that’s inexpressible.” I don’t doubt that many who read this novel are going to feel the same way.'

Julia Keller, of the Chicago Tribune, took issues with Lee's writing style, which she says are at times like 'a bad sitcom'.

She said: 'In too many spots, Go Set a Watchman is almost unbearably clunky. Scenes designed to be comic set-pieces... are as amateurish and cloying as a bad sitcom. The pacing is uneven.

Keller continued: 'At times, the novel reads like To Kill a Mockingbird fan fiction. That is, it's as if a lesser author has commandeered these beloved characters and put them where they don't belong.

'But then — just when you're rolling your eyes and shaking your head and wondering why a publisher would imperil Lee's reputation by releasing what seems like a first draft — along comes a phrase of startling beauty.'

Publisher HarperCollins, anticipating concerns that Atticus's harsh talk will disillusion readers, issued a statement late Friday saying: 'The question of Atticus's racism is one of the most important and critical elements in this novel, and it should be considered in the context of the book's broader moral themes.

Not that interested in a first draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in which Atticus Finch is a segregationist. That's why it was a draft.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 10, 2015

'Go Set A Watchman explores racism and changing attitudes in the South during the 1950s in a bold and unflinching way.

'At its heart, it is the coming-of-age story of a young woman who struggles to reconcile the saintly figure of her beloved father with her own more enlightened views.

'In Go Set a Watchman, Scout takes center stage as we witness her anger toward and stand against prejudice and social injustice.'

Watchman was written before Mockingbird and is only Lee's second book. The 89-year-old's attorney, Tonja Carter, said she stumbled upon the unpublished manuscript last year.

I think it's likely the Atticus she created in Mockingbird isn't same character at all, just same name. Novelists do that.
— Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon) July 11, 2015

HarperCollins has reported that pre-orders for Watchman are the highest in company history, while Amazon.com has announced that pre-orders are the strongest since the last Harry Potter story, which came out in 2007.

But questions have been raised all along about the quality of the book, completed when Lee was a young and unpublished writer and received coolly by publishers, and whether Lee was fully aware of the planned release.

Atticus Finch as a segregationist? It's like finding out Santa Claus beats his reindeer. #GoSetAWatchman
— Jamie Harding (@jamiekharding) July 10, 2015

Alabama officials, responding to at least one complaint of possible elder abuse, even visited with Lee at her nursing home in Monroeville and concluded she was indeed capable of making decisions about the book.

The portrait of Atticus, a supposed liberal revealing crude prejudices, will likely re-energize an old debate about Mockingbird, which has long been admired more by whites than by blacks.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and widely praised as a sensitive portrait of racial tension as seen through the eyes of a child in 1930s Alabama, it also has been criticized as sentimental and paternalistic.

In an interview with The Associated Press earlier this year, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison called it a 'white savior' narrative, 'one of those' that reduced blacks to onlookers in their own struggles for equal rights.

Trailer for the iconic novel turned film 'To Kill a Mockingbird'