The Casual Vacancy

To be honest, I did not expect much from “A Casual Vacancy,” J.K. Rowling's first foray into post-Potter adult lit. However, I was pleasantly surprised and finished the book with a 3.5 star feeling. At least some portion of my enjoyment came from the audiobook version as performed by the marvelous Tom Hollander; his excellent voicing of the characters really brought out each personality.

And what truly shines in this offering is the characterization; in the words of Fats Wall, the people of Pagford and the Fields are authentic. The book seemed to start off a bit slowly, but it takes time to build each character word by word, while painting the general society of the small town of Pagford. By the time you reach the end of the novel, you practically feel enmeshed in the fabric of the town; despite all of the tragedies along the way, I was rather sad to leave. In a way, “ACV” is a drama of manners, not just a character study.

Was there a main character? I say yes, it was Barry Fairbrother's ghost. Not the ghost “haunting” the message board of Pagford's council parish, mind you. The thread tying all of the people in the book together was the impact that Barry had while alive or the ripple-effect of his death. His very absence kicked off the fire-storm of accusatory posts against contenders for Barry's seat; a not-at-all-casual visitation of sins of the father/mother on their children returning to beleaguer them. Anonymousish electronic communication is used at parents when in-person communication is either missing or extremely derogatory.

The two casual vacancies sandwich a bit of soap opera and a bit of muckraking with a lot of real-life situations, both brutal and hum-drum. To say there is no plot in this book is a mistake; characters change or do their best to change from Crystal to Fats to Sukhvinder to Samantha Mollison. So, truly quite an enjoyable book and I look forward to more non-Harry Potter (or more Harry Potter) from Ms. Rowling.