The first chapter of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird sequel Go Set a Watchman is now available, in text and audiobook format.
Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman is hitting stores July 14, but the first chapter is already online. You can find it on The Wall Street Journal or The Guardian.
There is both a text version and an audio edition available. The clip is narrated by Reese Witherspoon, who also voices the full audiobook.
Although only the first chapter has been released, Lee’s new novel already has To Kill a Mockingbird fans in an uproar. No spoilers, but there are some pretty big twists we definitely didn’t see coming!
This is Harper Lee’s first published novel in over 50 years. When Go Set a Watchman was first announced, fans of Lee were worried that the 88-year-old author was not of sound mind when she released the manuscript for publication, but the State of Alabama has since determined that this was not the case.
The To Kill a Mockingbird sequel was completed in the mid-1950s, and picks up the story of Atticus and Scout 20 years after the original novel (published in 1960).
Related: Harper Lee’s new book: Why many are worried about its publication
Watchman was allegedly the first book Lee completed. The story goes that when she first submitted the manuscript, she was instructed by her would-be publicist to write a story set in the time the book’s flashbacks took place; the expanded flashback sequence would become the much beloved To Kill a Mockingbird.
The official synopsis for Go Set a Watchman reads, “Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father, Atticus. She is forced to grapple with issues both personal and political as she tries to understand her father’s attitude toward society, and her own feelings about the place where she was born and spent her childhood.”