A 50-year gap between books

The revised version of Dolphin Girl is now in the home stretch, and I anticipate a mid-March date for a final read-through before publishing.

It is at least 12 years since I started writing the novel. It first appeared in print in 2008 as an anchor to the Lulu edition of Eating Clouds. Revisiting the story, re-ordering some sections and adding a few additional scenes has taken longer than anticipated. As that process nears completion the novel now carries a ‘decade-plus’ gestation tag.

So it was with a smile a few days ago that I read a newspaper article about Harper Lee. The author of To Kill A Mockingbird is to become a two-book author. The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer will release her second book, Go Set A Watchman, this summer. It will mean there has been a gap of more than 50 years between the publishing of her first and second books. Against that timescale the delay in the arrival of the complete version of Dolphin Girl does not appear quite so tardy.

Of course, any comparison is merely cosmetic. Lee has not spent the past half century writing Go Set A Watchman, which is essentially a sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird. The new novel was actually written in the 1950s before Mockingbird. Lee’s editor at the time persuaded her to go back and write another novel based on the flashbacks of the character Scout in Watchman. She did, and the result was the renowned To Kill A Mockingbird.

The unpublished manuscript for Go Set A Watchman was put aside and only rediscovered last autumn. Lee, now 88, allowed a few trusted friends to read the story, and encouraged by the feedback she has signed a publishing deal. The book is due to go on sale in July.

As for Dolphin Girl, while I feel at times that 50 years have passed since the first lines were written, the complete version of the novel is on the horizon for a spring 2015 release.