A Michigan bookstore is offering refunds to its customers who bought the newly released Harper Lee novel "Go Set a Watchman," because it feels the volume is "not a sequel or a prequel to 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' Neither is it a new book."
On its website, Brilliant Books in Traverse City, Mich., goes on to call the second book by the Alabama native, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1960 novel about race in the South, "a first draft that was originally, and rightfully, rejected" and urges its customers not to think of it as "a nice summer novel."
The posting likened "Go Set a Watchman" to James Joyce's "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and "Stephen Hero."
" 'Hero' was initially rejected, and Joyce reworked it into the classic 'Portrait.' 'Hero' was eventually released as an academic piece for scholars and fans — not as a new 'Joyce novel.' We would have been delighted to see 'Go Set A Watchman' receive a similar fate," Brilliant Books said online.
Store owner Peter Makin said that he decided to refund customers' money when on the day the novel was published, July 14, a woman, coming in to pick up her preordered copy, "told me she had heard things about the book that had made her unsure if she wanted to read it at all. It wasn't 'Harper Lee's new novel.'
"Her disappointment was palpable," Makin continued, "so I immediately apologized for being complicit in the marketing, and offered her a refund, which she accepted."
The bookstore has a policy to stand by its book recommendations; for example, all its monthly selections are guaranteed, although not many are returned.
"We are not offering refunds based on the quality of the [Lee] book or its content. We are offering refunds to those who bought the book based on marketing that led them to believe it was something other than what it actually was," Makin said. "If you find yourself complicit in misleading a customer, you should make amends. Again, this isn't about whether they liked the book. It's about being misled by the marketing."
