Rowling said she was expecting a more reserved book launch. She told the USA Today, “As much as is possible I wanted this to be a normal book publication.” In her interview, Rowling said, “Some of the furor that surrounded a Harry Potter publication was fun. I always loved meeting readers. I always loved doing events where I got to speak to readers, but some of it, candidly wasn’t fun at all.”
Speaking to the media, she admitted about the Harry Potter phenomenon, “The thing took on a life of its own. Some of it was just sheer insanity, and I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t rein it in. Incredible as it is to look back on it, I’m never going to be chasing that again.”
The ‘Casual Vacancy’ is published by Hachette Livre division Little, Brown. It has already attracted huge press coverage, but apparently, Rowling plans few appearances besides the one in London on the day of launch.
The New Yorker magazine has described Rowling’s new adult novel as a “rural comedy of manners that, having taken on state-of-the-nation social themes, builds into black melodrama.”
For Rowling, who lived on state benefits as a single mother when she began writing the Potter series, class prejudice and poverty is important. She says, “The poor are discussed as this homogenous mash, like porridge … The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.”