Readers make a beeline for Harper Lee’s book

Published in her autumn days, Lee’s novel has astonishing demand

Manama

 Five months after it was announced that a new Harper Lee novel would be published on July 14, bookstores and libraries across the Kingdom were bracing themselves for an overwhelming demand from bookworms.   

The author’s first novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” was published in 1960. After 55 years, her second novel “Go Set a Watchman” has been widely snapped up by bibliophiles.

 More than 30 copies of “Go Set a Watchman” were sold at the Virgin Megastore in Bahrain City Center, the only bookstore where the much-anticipated novel is available now.

 “We've got our copy! Make sure you get yours! Go Set a Watchmen by Harper Lee now available in store,” Virgin Mega Store posted on Facebook.  The book is priced at BD 13.500.  Harper, the book’s publisher, has ordered a first print run of a whopping two million copies of “Watchman,” the follow-up to “Mockingbird” that Lee wrote in the mid-1950s and that was discovered last year by Lee’s attorney, Tonja Carter, according to the publisher. 

Amazon stated that it was their "most pre-ordered book" since “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” in 2007, and stores arranged all-night openings from midnight to cope with expected demands. 

 The title comes from Isaiah 21:6: "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth." It alludes to Jean Louise Finch's view of her father, Atticus Finch, as the moral compass ("watchman") of Maycomb, and has a theme of disillusionment, as she realizes the extent of the bigotry in her home community.

 Meanwhile Harper Lee's novel "Go Set a Watchman" took the top spot on the U.S. bestsellers list this week, pushing last week's chart topper "The Girl on the Train" into second place.

 The manuscript for the novel was originally thought to be lost. According to The New York Times, the typed manuscript of “Go Set a Watchman” was first found during an appraisal of Lee's assets in 2011 in a safe deposit box in Lee's hometown of Monroeville. 

 Lee's lawyer, Tonja Carter, later revealed that she had first assumed the manuscript to be an early draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird”. Later, upon learning in the summer of 2014 of the existence of a second novel at a family gathering, she then re-examined Lee's safe-deposit box and found the manuscript for “Go Set a Watchman”.

 After contacting Lee and reading the manuscript, she passed it on to Lee’s agent, Andrew Nurnberg.  Some publications have called the timing of the book "suspicious", citing Lee's declining health, statements she had made over several decades that she would not write or release another novel, and the death of her sister (and caregiver) just two months before the announcement. 

 National Public Radio (NPR) reported on the news of her new book release, with circumstances "raising questions about whether she is being taken advantage of in her old age."

 Some publications have even called for fans to boycott the work. News sources, including NPR and BBC News have reported that the conditions surrounding the release of the book were unclear and posited that Lee might not have had full control of the decision.

 Investigators for the state of Alabama interviewed Lee in response to a suspicion of elder abuse in relation to the publication of the book. However, by April 2015 the investigation had found that the claims were unfounded.