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Historical September–October 2015 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
I wasn’t all that surprised when Atticus Finch announced that he was gay.
To be fair, I was really stunned and distressed when his bigotry jumped from the pages in Go Set A Watchman.
I was initially pleased to learn that I’d get to know Atticus better, but what a letdown. Like most people, I thoroughly enjoyed To Kill A Mockingbird.
I read it when I was young and a bit naive and it resonated with me.
He was the kind of man to which we should all aspire! Atticus was bright, kind, and filled with good values. Unfortunately, as I grew older, it became clearer and clearer that there weren’t many Atticus Finches in the real world. Our leaders consistently let us down.
I never voted for Richard Nixon but I believed him when he announced, “I am not a crook.” Oh well.
There was the deceit and duplicity in the Viet Nam war, the Chicago presidential convention, and more. Who really killed Kennedy, and have they found those weapons of mass destruction yet? Recently there are questions about the political machinations that contributed to the suicide of Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich. Reality is that we’re all flawed. So Atticus’ bigotry in book #2 was disappointing, yet I thought, “OK, he’s real.” In the third book of Harper Lee’s trilogy, The Humidity Never Ceases, found in an attic seven months after the publication of Go Set A Watchman, we learned that Atticus was more than a widower; he simultaneously had two wives, tipsy Tallulah in Toledo and bombastic Bettye in Birmingham. (Perhaps Atticus was a cousin of Charles Lindbergh?) At this point, I regretted that I’d read books #2 and #3.
It was nicer to have Atticus as he appeared in #1, a model for all of us.
I vowed that even if another hidden Harper Lee book was unearthed, I was not going to read it. No way. Of course, when #4, While the Sun Sets, was discovered a year later, I immediately read it.
I hoped Atticus would be the Atticus I first knew. Forget Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio; it should be Where have you gone, Atticus Finch!?! Atticus’ journey continues in While the Sun Sets. Atticus announces that he’s gay, and he gives up his law practice to become a cartoonist for Disney.
In the final chapter, he is a greeter at Disneyland and becomes romantically involved with Amelia Earhart. Believe me, I promise not to read #5 if it ever comes to light. I’ve had my fill of Atticus. Rumor has it, though, that a manuscript which appears to be the sequel to Gone With the Wind has just been discovered!
In She Broke the Wind, Scarlett gets involved in politics, leads the women’s suffrage movement, and is elected to congress in 1878.
She appears on the vicepresidential ballot in 1881 and becomes president when Garfield is assassinated.
The book begins with President O’Hara meeting with Secretary of State Rhett Butler and Madame Defarge.
This one I want to read!
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, September–October 2015.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2015_09.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
