Go Set a Watchman

One of the strongest, I'm assuming inadvertent, messages is about the racism you don't see in yourself. Most people know that Atticus turns out to be racist in this sequel (even though it was written first) to To Kill a Mockingbird, but Jean Louise, even as she is appalled by her father had her own bigotries.

Jean Louise has to grapple with her father falling from his pedestal. The struggle for civil rights finds Atticus scared, opposed to the idea of black people gaining too much power. Jean Louise is angry and disappointed, but she also thinks black people are sorta childlike and base, and she doesn't seem to disagree with her father saying that if “they” organize and vote, it'll be a mess because they're not ready for the responsibilities. She just seems to think they might be able to evolve and grow. And she only seems to dislike the NAACP only slightly less than her dad.

This book was written a long time ago, when Jean Louise would be seen as a lot more progressive, but still one of the take aways is that Atticus is meant to be seen as bigoted, but Jean Louise's (now outdated) views are portrayed as simply factual.

Still, I really found a lot of this timely. We still have people who are scared of progress, scared of different racial groups gaining too much power. And we are also currently grappling with seeing heroes topple as every day seems to yield one or two new stories about successful people (directors, actors, producers, agents), people we'd admired, turning out to be flawed. Ironically, when this book was published a couple years ago, so many fans of TKaM had to go through a lot of the emotions Jean Louise went through – she was disappointed in her father, while a lot of people were disappointed in the same person as this great, noble character in literature/cinema.

The portion where Jean Louise finds a racist brochure and then eavesdrops on the racist meeting Atticus and her boyfriend were attending almost read like a horror novel or movie along the lines of Get Out, Rosemary's Baby, or Stepford Wives. There is something so perverse and horrifying about thinking you know someone and finding out there is something malignant under the surface.

I know this was basically a first draft, but this didn't bother me too much other than some of the speeches/conversations toward the end felt too unnatural, like no one would use those words outside of a novel, and if the characters were standing on a soapbox.