Description
The Casual Vacancy by J. K. Rowling is a contemporary novel set in the seemingly idyllic English town of Pagford, where the unexpected death of parish councillor Barry Fairbrother leaves a vacant seat on the local council. What follows is a bitter election campaign that exposes the divisions beneath the town’s picturesque surface. Wealth clashes with poverty, teenagers with their parents, and neighbours with one another as long-standing resentments and rivalries come to light.
The vacant council seat becomes the focus of competing ambitions, personal grudges and political disagreements, while the lives of Pagford’s residents become increasingly entangled. Rowling explores class, family, relationships, community and the inequalities that can exist behind a respectable façade, combining social observation with dark humour and multiple interwoven storylines. The Casual Vacancy was published in 2012 and was Rowling’s first novel written for adults.
