Did you all see that Harper Lee is going to publish a sequel to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD next year?

It's called GO SET A WATCHMAN.

What you do all think about that?

Definitely nostalgic. So of COURSE, Gravelle likes it. The train receding is an apt clue to the themes, I'm guessing. In Canadian prairie fiction, the oppression of small-town life is a big theme, with train symbology a central symbol--the receding whistle carrying across the dark, empty space conjuring up images of escape and going somewhere better than the small town with its dullness, pettiness, gossip, discrimination, and crushing closeness. I'm wondering if the train on this "external apparatus" as it's known (at least in Canadian publishing) hints at any of these themes, as common in American small-town life as they are in Canadian. Inescapable oppression, either external or psychological. In prairie fiction, there's an ironic disconnect between the oppressive closeness of a small-town population and the surrounding vast, dull, empty landscape. This book isn't the prairie, of course, but there still seem to be some common elements.  I guess I'm saying the visual effects of the cover are indeed nostalgic and somber (those are certainly subdued colors), and the train with tracks vanishing into the horizon is symbolic of something--we'll know soon. So I cast my vote for yes, I like it. A lot hinted at in this simple design.

--edited by RCGravelle on 7/8/2015, 6:36 PM--