Stepping out of the Harry Potter Mold

Was it a stroke of luck or life’s pleasant surprise? In mid-1990, a young woman on a trip from Manchester to London got stuck for four hours at the station due to delays. Who would have thought that this unfortunate situation would turn into a fortunate one? It was while waiting for the train that the young woman conceived three literary characters who would change the landscape of magical fantasy and literature as a whole. These characters are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. The young woman was Joanne Rowling. There would be more obstacles to getting the first book published but Rowling, with her tenacity and indomitable spirit, managed to overcome these challenges. After several rejections, the first book was published to great commercial success. The rest, they say, is history.

The seven-book series that these characters starred in would eventually become the bestselling book series in history; the series sold over 600 million copies. The success of the entire series was further underlined by the success of its movie adaptation. The Harry Potter series has now become an integral part of contemporary popular culture. Rather, that is an understatement because the series is a cultural phenomenon, a cultural reset. Harry Potter-themed parks were built across the world. The actors and actresses who grew up with the series have also gained recognition and have become icons themselves. Then there is J.K. Rowling who has also risen above obscurity to become one of the contemporary’s most recognized writers; this is despite some of her controversial and contentious views.

But how does one follow up the success and legacy of the Harry Potter series? Rowling was nonplussed and undaunted by the prospect. After her massively successful venture into children’s literature, she made an unexpected switch to adult fiction, and in 2012, she published The Casual Vacancy; she later published more works under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The novel is set in Pagford, England, a suburban West Country town. It is the quintessence of a sleepy countryside town where nothing of consequence happens. While the village people know each other, they tend to keep to themselves. Meanwhile, outsiders, oftentimes, are unwelcome. The town’s fervent rejection of outside forces makes Pagford an ideal place for the proliferation of rumors and scandal.

“It frightened people when you were honest; it shocked them. Other people, Fats had discovered, were mired in embarrassment and pretense, terrified that their truths might leak out, but Fats was attracted by rawness, by everything that was ugly but honest, by the dirty things about which the likes of his father felt humiliated and disgusted. Fats thought a lot about messiahs and pariahs; about men labeled mad or criminal; noble misfits shunned by the sleepy masses.”

~ J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

Intrigue in the town escalated with the unexpected demise of Parish Councillor, Barry Fairbrother. He suffered a brain aneurysm in the car park of the local golf course. His death also means a spot in the local council has been freed up, hence, the book’s title. To fill up the vacant position, the locals must vote in a poll. This was the crux of the story because a lot was at stake in this position. In particular, the fate of the Fields and its residents is hinged on this election. The Fields is a low-income housing development directly adjacent to Pagford’s larger and more affluent neighboring city Yarvil. The residents of Pagford refuse to associate with the denizens of the Fields who they perceive as either petty criminals or addicts.

The consensus of the Pagfordians is to have the Fields be annexed to Yarvil. This would solve the problem of the Pagfordian; the residents of Yarvil, on the other hand, don’t get to have a say on this subject. Barry, who has always been sympathetic to the residents of the Fields because he grew up there, has a different perspective. He, along with a few Pagfordians, would rather have the Fields remain as part of Pagford. His vacant seat then provided an opportunity for those who wanted to separate Fields from Pagford. Interestingly, most Pagfordians would rather complain and debate about it rather than actually directly vote about the Fields’ fate. They would rather leave this decision to the members of the local council. As the Pagfordians hastily filled the casual vacancy what ensued was a comic expose that delved into the residents’ inner lives.

In the days leading to the election of Barry’s replacement, it is increasingly becoming palpable that the campaign period is anything but friendly. First, mysterious posts purporting to be from the Ghost of Barry started appearing on the parish’s website. These posts contained vicious rumors maligning the candidates vying for Barry’s post: Simon Price, Colin Wall, and Parminder Jawanda. These posts gave glimpses into the lives of these characters. Price’s criminal ties were exposed in these posts. Meanwhile, one post claimed that Jawanda, a doctor and also a member of the Council, was having an illicit affair with Barry. Wall, the Deputy Headteacher of the local comprehensive, was alleged to have molested a young child. The townspeople all believed that these allegations were made by other locals. However, truth is stranger than fiction.

These claims against the major candidates naturally piqued everyone’s interest. How will the townspeople get to the bottom of this? The situation was exacerbated by the different candidates’ puerile behaviors; they had no scruples engaging in pettiness. As the election day got nearer, the town got more and more embroiled in intrigue. Things were starting to percolate as the intricacies and dynamics of small towns floated to the surface. What seemed to be a simple act started to expose the shaky foundations of the town. It also threatened to further undermine the seemingly ephemeral relationships between and amongst its denizens. As witnessed by people across the world, politics can be messy. Elections can be messy.

“She tamped down the awful urge to cry with a fierceness that her mother had always deplored, especially in the wake of her father’s death, when her other daughters, and the aunts and cousins, were all wailing and beating their breasts. ‘And you were his favourite too!’ But Parminder kept her unwept tears locked tightly inside where they seemed to undergo an alchemical transformation, returning to the outer world as lava slides of rage, disgorged periodically at her children and the receptionists at work.”

~ J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

As the candidates became the talk of the town, other concerns vis-a-vis the upcoming election also started to surface. A seminal concern was the methadone clinic, Bellchapel, located in the Fields. Once the Fields is annexed to Yarvil, funding to the clinic will be cut down, resulting in its inevitable closure; Yarvil was funneling funds to the clinic. The clinic’s closure would leave recovering heroin addicts without a place to rehabilitate. They would also lose access to the critical support and medicine they need which would result in them relapsing, a scenario everyone wanted to prevent. To this, the council has no answer. They were effectively in a stalemate. Addiction – marijuana and heroic use – was just one of the many subjects that the novel underscored.

The election exposed a plethora of social concerns that have been hounding the denizens of the town. Most of these concerns have also trickled into households, threatening to undermine family values that hold these households together. Family dynamics were examined hand-in-hand with social concerns. These are secrets that were meant to be kept within the household, such as the abuse that the children and the matriarch of one family experienced at the hands of an abusive patriarch. The patriarch presents a facade of respectability to the rest of the town. Another child was resorting to self-harm as she was constantly berated by her own mother. Meanwhile, an adopted child of another family was struggling with his identity. These various illustrations underline the generational gaps between parents and their children.

Various traumas experienced by children were depicted in the novel. Another prominent example was sixteen-year-old Krystal Weedon. She lived in the Fields with her four-year-old brother Robie and their heroin-addicted prostitute mother Terri. Because of Terri’s addiction, Krystal was Robbie’s primary caretaker. Kay, a social worker, was determined to help Terri recover from her addiction. Krystal wanted to run away from the hellhole she was stuck in, even attempting to have herself impregnated. She wanted to end a cycle of trauma that dominated her life but a series of unfortunate events resulted in a tragic ending. Other sources of trauma in the story included rape. Other underlying social concerns were ill-disguised racism, mental health issues, suicide, and even pornography.

It is also a no-brainer that politics figured prominently in the story. Politics bring out the best and the worst in everyone. Campaign periods can be messy as candidates have no scruples about mudslinging. They compromise their moral compass to earn victories. In the story, politics was a catalyst in making the town’s residents reflect on themselves and their lives. The upcoming election made the residents contemplate their own melodramas. In its examination of politics, the novel captured the growing dichotomies across the social classes. The lower classes are vulnerable to abuses and exploitation. The affluent frowns upon those in the lower classes. Mary, Barry’s wife, for instance, was snobbish and wanted her husband to agree to rezoning and annexing the Fields to Yarvil. Mary’s sentiments were shared by several residents.

“Fats was starting to think that if you flipped every bit of received wisdom on its head you would have the truth. He wanted to journey through dark labyrinths and wrestle with the strangeness that lurked within; he wanted to crack open piety and expose hypocrisy; he wanted to break taboos and squeeze wisdom from their bloody hearts; he wanted to achieve a state of amoral grace, and be baptised backwards into ignorance and simplicity.”

~ J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy

Interstingly, Rowling conceived the idea of the book while on an aeroplane en route to the United States; she was on tour for the seventh Harry Potter book. Somehow, Rowling’s most interesting ideas were conceived while she was in transit or on public transportation. Nevertheless, The Casual Vacancy underlines the quality of Rowling’s writing; it was one of the novel’s strengths. She populated her story with an eclectic cast of characters who each epitomized various members of society; the book was character-driven and was bereft of a robust plot. These characters gave the novel a lush tapestry. However, there was something visibly lacking that would have elevated it. It was a generic and predictable story; nothing was outstanding about it. The attempts at satire fizzled out.

Despite its flaws, The Casual Vacancy is a decent novel about contemporary Britain. Pagford was a microcosm for the nation as the concerns Pagfordian dealt with resonate on a national level, even on a universal level. The story was ambitious and covered a vast territory. While politics was a key ingredient, the novel’s finer details take the readers into the lives of the Pagfordians. Trauma was prevalent. Several social concerns were underlined, including rape, mental health issues, substance abuse, pornography, domestic and child abuse, and even suicide. Poverty and the growing dichotomy between social classes were also seminal subjects explored in the novel. In stepping out of the shadows of her popular literary series, Rowling proved that she is a capable and flexible writer. The Casual Vacancy might not be as alluring as her earlier works but it was still a decent crossover.

“A life of ease and plenty dangled over his head like a great bulging pinata, which he might smash open if only he had a stick big enough, and the knowledge of when to strike. Simon had the child’s belief that the rest of the world exists as staging for their personal drama; that destiny hung over him, casting clues and signs in his path, and he could not help feeling that he had been vouchsafed a sign, a celestial wink.”

~ J.K. Rowling, The Casual Vacancy
Book Specs

Author: J.K. Rowling
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Publishing Date: 2012
No. of Pages: 639
Genre: Mystery, Literary

Synopsis

When Barry Fairbrother dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and 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 town’s 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?

Blackly comic, thought-provoking, and constantly surprising, The Casual Vacancy is the work of a storyteller like no other.

About the Author

To know more about J.K. Rowling, click here.