The Land of Sweet Forever by Harper Lee review newly discovered stories from an American great

"When a new book is published by a writer dead for a decade, there is always some suspicion that the bottom of the barrel is being scraped. When the writer is Harper Lee, there is also the unpleasant aftertaste of the release of her second novel, 2015's Go Set a Watchman, which was promoted as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, when in fact it was a formless early draft."

"This new book, The Land of Sweet Forever, is a much more conventional enterprise: a collection of Lee's unpublished short stories and previously uncollected essays. No deception is being practised here, and if people want to read the lesser scribblings of a favourite author, it is surely a victimless crime. However, like most such books, it has little to offer to those who aren't diehard fans."

When a new book appears after an author's death, readers often suspect posthumous scraping. Harper Lee's 2015 Go Set a Watchman provoked controversy as a formless early draft and raised doubts about consent. The Land of Sweet Forever is a conventional collection of unpublished short stories and previously uncollected essays. No deception surrounds its release, and readers can choose to read the lesser scribblings without harm. Most pieces here were written in Lee's youth and are badly underdeveloped, failing even as vignettes. Stories include attempts to unload a truck in Manhattan, a temporary change to the doxology in a Methodist church, and a sketch about New York movie audiences. The young Lee demonstrates little sense of what a story is.

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