I have spent many, many hours reading J. I am a known Harry Potter fan. A lot of young-adult authors, great ones, have tried their hands at literary fiction, and not a lot of them have succeeded. Not even Roald Dahl could switch-hit, and not for lack of trying. The most successful example I can think of is T. But after about 10 pages of The Casual Vacancy , I began to forget about all that stuff and the online rumors about how the book was amazing or awful or had lots of sex in it.
I forgot about how I had three days to write a review of a page book. I forgot about everything except the pages in front of me. What surprised me about The Casual Vacancy was not just how good it was, but the particular way in which it was good.
I also expected it to showcase their weaknesses, because all books have them. But The Casual Vacancy is a different beast entirely. It was not what I was expecting. This is a deeply moving book by somebody who understands both human beings and novels very, very well. I was wrong. The mistake ninety-nine percent of humanity made, as far as Fats could see, was being ashamed of what they were; lying about it, trying to be somebody else.
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. Fats, like so many adolescents, has grasped a truth and then made the mistake of believing it to be the whole truth. The Casual Vacancy is set in a small, picturesque English town called Pagford. Some Pagfordians resent the burden of the Fields, the petty crime and the addicts in need of rehab and the children in need of education, and they want to rezone it as part of Yarvil and be done with it.
