Don't sell 'Watchman' short; it's another worthwhile, important story

When I was a kid, there were many times that I read books or watched movies and when I was finished, I found myself wondering what happened to the characters after the end of the story.

Did Rick Blaine ever see Ilsa Lund again?

Did Scarlett O'Hara ever figure out a way to get Rhett Butler back?

And what happened to Scout, Jem and Atticus after I turned the final page.

That was half the fun of having a good imagination, and eventually I came to realize that stories ending where they did was the beauty of good literature. It's why one of the best short stories I ever read was Frank Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger?"

A lot of people hate stories like that. When they finish a story, they don't want to be left with any questions.

But "Casablanca" and "Gone With the Wind" are both stories that became an integral part of the American culture, and with plenty of money to be made continuing the stories, eventually there were books -- "As Time Goes By" and "Scarlett" -- that continued the two sagas.

It's tough to get too worked up about "Casablanca." The movie was based on a play, not a great work of art. But "Gone With the Wind" was one of the best-selling, most-beloved novels ever written, and its author, Margaret Mitchell, never wanted there to be a sequel.


But there was another book almost as famous as Mitchell's novel, a book that became an even more lasting part of the culture that also begged for another story.

I'm not sure whether it was the book or the movie that made "To Kill a Mockingbird" so beloved. I was 10 when the book was published in 1960 and 12 when the movie came out two years later.

Gregory Peck won the Academy Award for best actor for his portrayal of Atticus Finch, and many years later the American Film Institute selected Atticus as the most heroic character in movie history.

Atticus was a great hero, the type of American we all wished we were. A man who stood for what was right, a man who exposed racism, a man who truly taught his children to be good and true.

Just like Mitchell, though, Harper Lee never wrote another book. Or at least she never wrote another book after "Mockingbird" was published. People asked for another book for decades and Lee never wrote one. She is 89 now, and by most accounts she is far gone into senility.

Yet in the last year, another manuscript has emerged. "Go Set a Watchman" has been described as an early version of "Mockingbird," although that isn't what it is at all.

It's essentially the first manuscript she submitted, the story of Jean Louise Finch in her 20s, returning home to Macomb for a visit in 1954, just after the Supreme Court's historic Brown decision to find that her father isn't happy with what is happening in the country.

The publisher suggested it might be better to write about Jean Louise when she was much younger, and that was the book that became "To Kill A Mockingbird."

The other manuscript just sort of disappeared, which is a real shame. It was finally published today, and thanks to the magic of e-books and my Amazon Kindle Fire, I spent much of the day reading it.

There's no question it will be controversial, as much because of the unforgiving time in which we live as anything else. It's more than ironic. I'm convinced that the more flaws we have ourselves, the more we could benefit from a modicum of kindness or understanding, the less willing we are to accept anyone else's flaws.

Many Americans are ready to dismiss the contributions made by such giants as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson because they owned slaves and because Jefferson had sex with at least one of his slaves.

And many others will write off the 1954 Atticus Finch because he argues that maybe Negroes aren't ready to live as equals in the same society with white people.

There are people who argue there should be no heroes at all because they will always be proven to have flaws, and if we expect perfection from anyone, we will always be disappointed.

But if you read "Watchman" from beginning to end, and if you think about what you have read, you will come away with a better understanding of exactly why Atticus is a real hero.

Some people will claim the publication of this book diminishes the earlier one.

I say they're wrong. I think it enriches it and we are better for its existence.