The world’s press has faced a super-embargo issued by the publishers of JK Rowling’s first novel for adults, The Casual Vacancy. Copies were to be delivered by hand to select reviewers. One wonders what intricate deals and hours of negotiations have gone on to secure Mark Lawson this rare interview?
It is an unpleasant British trait that we resent the commercial success of our own and there will be many critics itching to slate this novel, said to be a dark comedy about a strait-laced English village that plunges into an anarchic meltdown. Let it be judged on its quality, not the wealth of its author.
