Rowling launches novel to fanfare, mixed reviews
LONDON — J.K. Rowling launched her long-anticipated first book for adults to publishing hype, mixed reviews and an enthusiastic welcome from Harry Potter’s legion of now grown-up fans.
The lines were shorter and the wizard costumes were missing Thursday but “The Casual Vacancy” appeared to some of the same fanfare that greeted each Potter tome, with stores wheeling out crates of the books precisely at 8 a.m. as part of a finely honed marketing strategy.
Almost 1,000 people were attending a reading Thursday evening at London’s Southbank Centre, most of them clutching copies of the book to be signed by the author. Many were young adults who had grown up with Rowling’s boy wizard and wanted to see what the author would do next.
A story of ambition, envy and rivalry set in the fictional English village of Pagford, the novel recounts the civic warfare sparked when the unexpected death of a town official leaves a vacancy on its governing body. Characters set on a collision course range from the affluent lawyer Miles Mollison to the Weedons, a ramshackle clan living in The Fields, the rundown housing project on the edge of town.
Reviews have been mixed. The Associated Press judged it a challenging but rewarding read full of emotion and heart. AP’s Deepti Hajela said while its troubled characters mean “this isn’t a book that’s easy to fall in love with ... what could have been an unreadable story becomes something else in Rowling’s hands, thanks to her gift of being able to make her characters complex and really, just human.”