Margaret Edwards
It won’t require your having read Harper Lee’s newly published novel, Go Set A Watchman, for you to participate in this free-ranging discussion that will use the novel as a point of departure. We may consider: was it wise to publish this “early draft” of the famous To Kill A Mockingbird, shining a new and unflattering light on the noble character of Atticus Finch? This invites the larger question of how our society has changed since the 1950s, when Mockingbird became so popular. Is it possible for the noble father of the author’s fondly recalled Southern childhood also to be the racist reactionary with whom the older, wiser author/daughter passionately disagrees? And why does the white South cling to its racism—now less overtly stated than before, but deeply entrenched?
Margaret Edwards will entertain these questions and more in the public discussion she will lead at 4 p.m. on the Library’s mezzanine, Monday, September 14. Ms. Edwards is a retired professor who taught literature for 30 years in University of Vermont’s English Department. She has the perspective of someone of Southern parentage who grew up in the South, a background which she hopes adds a different, deeper dimension to her understanding of Harper Lee’s work.