The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

No, this is not Harry Potter, although you can almost see glimmers of the characters in this novel. It's a novel of the Dursley's world, with Dursley-ish characters. Pagford is any small town, filled with the same small-minded, petty individuals you would find in any small town in America or, evidently England. One man's sudden death sends ripples through this town that no one would have imagined. It is funny, reading these people's lives and seeing the silly things that they find so important. However, Rowling is proving herself to be a master of menacing characters. Several scenes in this novel are so atmospheric and tense, I felt uncomfortable for the characters involved. The effect is kind of jolting as the reader is catapulted from a rather benign or even amusing scene to one of despair or one with an undercurrent of threatening to boil over.


Then at one point, Rowling quietly flips a switch and suddenly you see the reality of what she's writing. Maybe it snuck up on me because it's not a world I've ever experienced, but that's part of the point of the whole thing - to expose those who inhabit the Dursley's world of the seedier underbelly that exists alongside that world. Rowling takes social issues and exposes them like an open festering wound. The final line was so powerfully poignant it took my breath away, and even now, hours after reading it, brings tears to my eyes. She can take a place alongside Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell as a social commentator. Anyone interested in going into social work should read this book.

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