It’s going to be tough to read Harper Lee’s new – yet old – book, “Go Set a Watchman.”

The book by the author of “To Kill a Mockingbird” is set for release this week.

Spoiler alert, if you don’t want to know  a bit more about what this book includes, quit reading now.

“Watchman” was presented to publishers in 1957. It is not a sequel to “Mockingbird”, though the story is set in the 1950s, 20 years after the time line for “Mockingbird.” But, as book publishing editors do, Lee’s editor suggested she refashion the story line. The result? “Mockingbird.”

Lee thought she had lost the only copy of “Watchman”, but a secretary recently found a carbon copy, and got Lee’s permission to get it published.

And the changes that were made between the original “Watchman” and the subsequent “Mockingbird” cause you to  wonder just how much change came about in Lee’s life during that period.

“Mockingbird” can bring up heart wrenching feelings. Gregory Peck portrays Atticus Finch wonderfully. Finch attempts to acquit a black man accused of raping a white women before an all-white jury. The tension in the courtroom is palpable. Though he loses the fight, he shows his children what is right and that standing up for what is right is honorable – and demanded.

Not only is “Mockingbird” on the reading list of most schools across the country, but the movie was a staple in our household. My children can quote lines from the movie. Why? Because the growing up that happens to the movie’s young girl, Scout, as she deals with tragedy and sees the racist world through the eyes of her father who fights to protect a black man, is something every child needs to understand.

It is the respect that her father, Atticus, is given, despite his low-key, modest demeanor. He starts to leave the courtroom, after all the whites have cleared out. The gallery, where the blacks had been relegated, remains full, as every person in the gallery stands in silence and respect. Scout is sitting in the gallery next to the preacher, who tells her, “Stand up Scout, your father is passing.”

At that point she realizes the reverence the townspeople hold for her father.

“Watchman”, though, shows Atticus in an entirely different light. A man in his 70s, hands crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, Atticus is a crotchety and sarcastic fellow. He defends meetings of white men fighting against the Supreme Court Brown v. Board of Education decision and he is a segregationist to the core.

What made Lee change her character so? Can we accept an Atticus Finch who is very possibly a racist, or at the very least a proponent of segregation?

It is going to be difficult to read “Watchman” but will certainly be worth the time spent. With such a great writer as Lee, the changes will be interesting.

While “Watchman’s” Atticus might be a closer representation of what an attorney in 1930s Alabama was like, we still want to see at least a tiny spark of “Mockingbird’s” Atticus in there somewhere.

We can only hope for that. But, if not, at least we are forewarned.