Go Set a Watchman

To Kill a Mockingbird taught us one thing: even though hatred will follow us, everywhere, until the books of history run red-the tide can be turned back by simple goodness. Those are the two forces at work in the world. It shouldn't be hard to reconcile the Atticus of Mockingbird to the Atticus in Watchman. He was born only twenty years after the end of the Civil War and raised in a strictly segregated society... so, anyone who would expect him to wholeheartedly embrace integration and full civil rights for blacks would want to read a fairy tale. In Watchman, Atticus reacts like we'd expect him to when outside forces threaten the social structures of his world. Having been born and raised in the South myself, I've known many people like Atticus: kind and fair to black people on an individual basis, but very uneasy when considering them on the whole. Atticus' noblesse oblige which we admired in Mockingbird should not be mistaken for a true belief in equality for all. Watchman is a fine book and I was able to read it without impacting the tenderness I've always felt towards Mockingbird.