'Alive and kicking!' Harper Lee squashes rumors she was forced to release new book

Monroeville, Alabama native Harper Lee, author of "To Kill a Mockingbird" — Monroeville, Alabama native Harper Lee, author of “To Kill a Mockingbird”

MONROEVILLE, Ala. — After news rocked the literary world last week of Pulitzer Prize winner Harper Lee publishing a second novel, many speculated the notoriously reclusive Alabama native hadn’t knowingly given her permission.

In a statement released through her lawyer, however, the 88-year old Ms. Lee put those concerns to rest by saying she’s “alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to ‘Watchman.’”

Those who know Ms. Lee, including many in her hometown of Monroeville, were skeptical the author consented to the new book being published while she was still living.

“People knew about the book, but never for sure,” Monroeville business owner Karen Hare, told The New York Times. “She always said she didn’t want anything done until she died.”

Harper Lee’s first novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is beloved across the world for its vivid southern storytelling and groundbreaking commentary on the racial tensions that gripped the nation during the 20th Century.

Ms. Lee’s newly announced book, “Go Set a Watchman” will reportedly continue the same themes, with many of the same characters we met in “Mockingbird,” and for good reason—the book was actually the first story Ms. Lee wrote about Scout and Atticus Finch.

“In the mid-1950s, I completed a novel called ‘Go Set a Watchman,’” Lee said in a statement through her publisher, Harper Publishing, announcing the new novel last week. “It features the character known as Scout as an adult woman, and I thought it a pretty decent effort. My editor, who was taken by the flashbacks to Scout’s childhood, persuaded me to write a novel (what became ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’) from the point of view of the young Scout.”

“I was a first-time writer, so I did as I was told. I hadn’t realized [Go Set a Watchman] had survived, so was surprised and delighted when my dear friend and lawyer Tonja Carter discovered it. After much thought and hesitation, I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication. I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”

The new novel is reportedly still set in the fictional Maycomb, Alabama, 20 years after “To Kill a Mockingbird” takes place.

“Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus,” Harper Publisher’s statement says. “She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.”

“Go Set a Watchman” will be released by Harper Publishing July 14th in both print and ebook with a first run of 2 million copies.