J.K. Rowling’s new book “The Casual Vacancy” is due out on Thursday. Will she be able to conquer a new audience with this very British novel for an adult audience? She has said in a recent interview that she is ready for the critics’ reactions. She has no expectations about what to expect. “I’ve published it because it’s what I really wanted to write.”
The novel is set in a small fictional English village called Pagford. It examines the lives of a lot of different characters of different ages. One family consisting of an out-of-control teenager, a toddler brother and a mother struggling with drug addiction is living in poverty. Poverty and the problems that it causes are at the heart of this novel. Rowling’s American publisher, Little, Brown, describes the book as being Dickensian.
Even though this is a very English novel, Rowling does thinks that the books will translate across national borders because it deals with society taking responsibility for all people in society.
Rowling is not working on a YA novel; she says she has no plans at the moment to go there. The next thing she thinks she will publish is a book for children, although she has definite ideas for her next adult novel.