Not only Rowling’s first departure from the phenomenally successful Harry Potter but also her first venture into adult fiction. We review The Casual Vacancy.
The Casual Vacancy – the blurb
When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.
Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty facade is a town at war.
Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils… Pagford is not what it first seems.
And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?
Foul mouths and foul minds
Having read the Strike novels previously I was already over the initial strangeness at reading adult fiction by the worlds most well known children’s author. It’s kind of like realising your teachers have first names, smoke and drink pints in a pub. There is adult content a plenty with heroin addicts, sex and swearing. Yet it isn’t only the themes that are adult, I confess the word ‘bowdlerized’ had me reaching for the dictionary.
Uncomfortable bedfellows
Rowling offers a round up of all that is wrong with middle class Britain by introducing us to Pagford, a gentile English town lying next to a notorious council estate who makes an uncomfortable bedfellow. All aspects of society are thrown in, non of them really likeable. Where The Casual Vacancy shines is its well written teenagers standing shoulder to shoulder with the adults. So often teenagers are simply ensconced in their bedrooms referred to by the parent but never understood. The teenagers in this book are difficult, messed up and stroppy, but we get to see why as we get to hear things from their point of view. It rounds the story out brilliantly.
Devour it
It did take me a little while to get in to the book and to immediately recognize all the characters but at around 500 pages there is time for Rowling to set the scene. She does so perfectly and before long you are drawn into the world of Pagford and its residents. I stopped about half way through and wondered how it was going to end. Everyone was so horrible that I hoped Rowling didn’t sugar coat the ending. I needn’t have feared. She certainly didn’t shy away from sadness in Potter and Casual Vacancy was no exception. I was shocked as the story reached it dramatic ending. Make no mistake, even with it’s teenage inclusions this isn’t a book your HP loving youngsters should read. You however should devour it.
Controversial
Whatever Rowling wrote after Potter was always going to make the news. With F words a plenty The Casual Vacancy didn’t disappoint critics looking for an easy head line. But with such quality writing it doesn’t disappoint fans of really well written fiction either. Even if you’ve never touched a Harry Potter book.
