To inflict body issues upon her?

To make everyone think they were starving on a desert island and hallucinating one another as food?

Atticus Finch is a mystery.

It'll all be explained in Harper Lee's next unpublished novel, appropriately titled "The Ham Week."

Go Purchase A Ham

I just read it in the bookstore and put it back after. I liked it, and you probably know this, but it's like if Superman was your favorite superhero and then you read Dark Knight Return and you think maybe not so much..

I had guessed Atticus was likely a racist.

Even though Lee shows Scout holds an idealized vision of him, she also hinted that Atticus only took the case out of a sense of duty. There were other hints he was simply a workhorse and if the judge said he had to do this pro bono case, he was going to do it because that was his job. And because his work ethic demanded he do the job to the best of his abilities, that's what he was going to do.

If Scout, Jem and Dill hadn't snuck out and gone to the jail, I have no doubt Atticus would have stepped aside after some token resistance and let that mob lynch Robinson. And Atticus doesn't seem all that broken up when Robinson was "killed while attempting to escape." In fact, he seemed relieved that he wouldn't have to file an appeal.

I think the publisher rejected the earlier draft of "To Kill a Mockingbird", which "Go Set A Watchman" most certainly seems to be, because it seems like an apologist novel. "Sorry White Southern people are such assholes towards black people, but deep down, they's good folks."

Harper Lee never wanted the book published as she later changed her mind about how she wanted Finch's origins to be interpreted. The fact it was released is because she's not in the best mental health these days and shyster literary agents talked her into it enough so she could sign some papers. The book was never even finished, Watchman, as it has been published, is basically a first draft. It's really pathetic the amount of abuse her legacy has been subjected to the last 10-15 years or so by people who just want some money out of the deal.