Wednesday, July 15, 2015
AP National Writer
NEW YORK
Shortly after sunrise Tuesday, the doors opened at the Old Courthouse Museum in Monroeville, Ala., and a bell tolled.
In the hometown and residence of Harper Lee, it was time to start a marathon reading of “Go Set a Watchman,” the second book no one ever thought they would see from the author of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
Lee fans worldwide stayed up late, awakened early and dashed off during meal breaks to pick up a copy of the year’s most anticipated novel, “Go Set a Watchman,” which came out Tuesday after months of the most unusual pre-publication attention in memory. From the moment publisher HarperCollins, announced “Watchman” in early February, reactions of ecstatic disbelief have been shadowed by concerns about the book’s quality, the 89-year-old Lee’s involvement in the release and the jarring transformation of Atticus Finch.
“I don’t think it’s going to damage Harper Lee’s legacy,” Susan Scullin, a reading teacher in New York City, said of “Watchman” as she prepared to buy a copy at the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan’s Union Square.
“It might damage Atticus Finch’s legacy, and that makes me a little nervous.”
Booksellers from Cambridge, Mass., to Downers Grove, Ill., opened at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, while Barnes & Noble stores began selling copies at 7 a.m., two hours earlier than usual. Pre-orders have already made “Go Set a Watchman” one of the year’s top books and did not let up despite lukewarm reviews and the unwelcome news that Finch, one of the all-time literary heroes, was a bigot in “Watchman.”
Amazon.com has called “Watchman” its most popular pre-order since the last Harry Potter book, which came out in 2007. At Barnes & Noble, the comparisons were not to a phenomenon like Potter, but to a follow up: Mary Amicucci, the superstore chain’s vice president for adult trade and children’s books, said that pre-orders were the highest since the 2009 release of Dan Brown’s “The Lost Symbol,” his first novel since “The Da Vinci Code.”
Sales for “Mockingbird,” already a consistent favorite, have doubled at Barnes & Noble since “Watchman” was announced.