Book: Casual Vacancy by J.K.Rowling

We all know who J.K.Rowling is. I kept seeing this book at the library but wasn't tempted to read it. I didn't read the Harry Potter books, heretical as that is, and only wondered very casually about her novel written for adults.

Then I heard part of an hour-long book review show that Diane Rehm does on NPR once a month where Casual Vacancy had been chosen, and my interest was piqued. So I got it at the library and read it. 

And was impressed. It takes place in the small English town of Pagford. One of the members of the local governing body dies of a brain aneurysm, creating a "casual vacancy" for his spot. There are supporters of different political philosophies (sort of Republican vs. Democrat) vying for the seat on the parish council. This is the skeleton of the story. We see these folks mainly in their homes where they are not guarded and where they do not pretend to be better than they are. Sadly, they are a rather unattractive lot which was disconcerting to some of Diane Rehm's reviewers. But they are also recognizable as modern and universal characters. Many call-in listeners made the point that this was "real life," and that this is "how life is." I agree completely. 

One of the issues is the Bellchapel addiction clinic used mostly by the poor. Rowling writes of the lives of an addicted woman and her teenage daughter and small son, lives with daily rhythms anathema and inexplicable to the more prosperous middle-class men and women in the town of Pagford: a social worker, businessmen and their wives, a lawyer, a school administrator. There are also the teenagers, children of these adults, who interact at school and on the streets, bullying, smoking, acting out sexually and keeping the secrets of their homes.  

There is a Pakistani family with their three children who have settled in this smug little English town. Both parents are physicians and one is also on the parish council. 

I liked that it was complete…a novel with a conflict and a resolution. It was of a whole. 

"Gavin had drunk even more greedily than Kay throughout dinner, enjoying his own private celebration that he had not, after all, been offered up as a sacrifice to Samantha's gladiatorial bullying. He faced Kay squarely, full of a courage born not only of wine but because he had been treated for an hour as somebody important, knowledgeable and supportive, by Mary." 

"None of them was Barry. He had been a living example of what they proposed in theory: the advancement, through education, from poverty to affluence, from powerlessness and dependency to valuable contributor to society. Did they not see what hopeless advocates they were, compared to the man who had died?"

Any author who tackles and tried to explicate broad issues like addiction and poverty and lack of quality education does society a service.