The Guardian interviews J.K. Rowling where she discusses ‘Casual Vacancy’ and much more

The Guardian has released a new interview that was recently conducted as well as a video interview with the author of the soon-to-be-released adult novel The Casual Vacancy.

From The Guardian interview we are given a deeper insight into the The Casual Vacancy story line:

The story opens with the death of a parish councillor in the pretty West Country village of Pagford. Barry had grown up on a nearby council estate, the Fields, a squalid rural ghetto with which the more pious middle classes of Pagford have long lost patience. If they can fill his seat with one more councillor sympathetic to their disgust, they’ll secure a majority vote to reassign responsibility for the Fields to a neighbouring council, and be rid of the wretched place for good.The pompous chairman assumes the seat will go to his son, a solicitor. Pitted against him are a bitterly cold GP and a deputy headmaster crippled by irreconcilable ambivalence towards his son, an unnervingly self-possessed adolescent whose subversion takes the unusual but highly effective form of telling the truth. His preoccupation with “authenticity” develops into a fascination with the Fields and its most notorious family, the Weedons.

Terri Weedon is a prostitute, junkie and lifelong casualty of chilling abuse, struggling to stay clean to stop social services taking her three-year-old son, Robbie, into care. But methadone is a precarious substitute for heroin, and most of what passes for mothering falls to her teenage daughter, Krystal. Spirited and volatile, Krystal has known only one adult ally in her life – Barry – and his sudden death casts her dangerously adrift. When anonymous messages begin appearing on the parish council website, exposing villagers’ secrets, Pagford unravels into a panic of paranoia, rage and tragedy.

Check out the full video interview with Ms. Rowling right here.

There were a number of subjects covered in the interview including Scottish politics, being star struck, e-reader books, another project that is in the queue on her laptop and many more topics.

When asked if she has read 50 Shades of Grey, Rowling stated that she was not saying, “Well if I’m truthful, I promised my editor I wouldn’t.” (She was joking)

Her guilty pleasures when it comes to reading novels are the “Whodunit’s” like Dorothy L. Sayers novels. Of course MuggleNet Academia already discussed this topic with British mystery author Dolores Gordon-Smith, which you can listen to here.

When asked if she could be likened (categorized) with any author in history, Rowling said E. Nesbit for children stories, and for adults The Casual Vacancy would be great if it was compared to Dickens or a few other of the 19th century greats.

The Casual Vacancy comes out September 27. To check out all we have on the novel, head on over to our hub right here.