Chapel Hill Library to Host Harper Lee Celebration

Harper Lee’s new book, “Go Set a Watchman,” will be the subject of events Tuesday at the Chapel Hill Public Library.

Readers remember the Atticus Finch of Harper Lee’s groundbreaking 1960 novel “To Kill a Mockingbird” as the white lawyer who stood up against racial prejudice. In the book, Finch defends a young black man named Tom Robinson, who was falsely accused of raping a white girl. Gregory Peck played Finch in the 1962 film adaptation.

But critics who’ve read advance copies of Lee’s second release warn readers to prepare themselves for a very different Atticus Finch. “Go Set a Watchman” features a racist Atticus Finch who affiliates with the KKK and opposes desegregation.

Nonetheless, Harper Lee fans are awaiting the release of her new book with a great deal of excitement. Flyleaf bookstore owner Jamie Fiocco says she’s even a little nervous about the expectations readers have for a book that may have been an early draft of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“Whenever I read a debut novel, I’m a little more forgiving with maybe the author’s way of writing and how they develop the story,” Fiocco said. “But this is a really strange situation in which the second book we’ll be reading is really the first book, […] but we’re reading it as the second and so there’s a lot of expectation.”

The Chapel Hill Public Library is inviting fans to gather there Tuesday to celebrate the release of “Go Set a Watchman.” Library Director Susan Brown says the celebration will feature the 1962 film adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and a panel discussion.

“Daniel Wallace is going to moderate,” Brown said. “We have an author, someone from the ACLU, someone from the Center for the Study of the American South, and they’re all going to talk about what Harper Lee has meant to them as writers, as readers and to our culture.”

The library is showing the film at 2 p.m. The panel will take place at 6:30 p.m. Flyleaf Books will be selling copies of Lee’s new book at the event.