J.K. Rowling’s next book might be rooted more in fact than fiction.
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is making headlines again, and it’s not for anything positive. Her latest book, The Ink Black Heart, is the sixth novel in her Corman Strike true crime series. Rowling wrote the book under her pseudonym, Robert Galbraith. It follows detective Robin Ellacott and her partner, Corman Strike, as they attempt to solve a murder.
This is where the plot gets interesting. A cartoonist named Edie Ledwell loses her fandom when her work is criticized for being racist, ableist, and transphobic (sound familiar?).
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Ledwell starts receiving death and rape threats, her home address is splashed all over the internet, and in the end, she’s found stabbed in a cemetery. It has a clear message about the dangers of “social justice warriors” who, in this book, plot a political hate campaign against the creator.
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Harry Potter Author Says Her New Book is Not Based on Real-Life Events
It’s not hard to see why people are raising their eyebrows at Rowling’s latest plot with how similar it is to her own situation with the Harry Potter fandom. However, the author denies making these connections on purpose.
“Although I have to say when it did happen to me, those who had already read the book in manuscript form were [like] – are you clairvoyant?” Rowling wrote on her Galbraith website. “I wasn’t clairvoyant, I just – yeah, it was just one of those weird twists. Sometimes life imitates art more than one would like.”
J.K. Rowling Under Fire
Rowling first came under fire in early June 2020 for a series of anti-trans comments on Twitter. She also liked tweets describing trans women as “men in dresses” and mocked the term “people who menstruate.” Since then, stars from the Harry Potter franchise have taken a stand against Rowling like Emma Watson, Daniel Radcliffe, and Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts).
The author has received several online death threats, and in 2021, her home address was shared online by transgender activists. Still, she says the similarities to her book are coincidental.
“I should make it really clear after some of the things that have happened the last year that this is not depicting [that],” she told Graham Norton.
“I had written the book before certain things happened to me online.” She continued, “I said to my husband, ‘I think everyone is going to see this as a response to what happened to me,’ but it genuinely wasn’t. The first draft of the book was finished at the point certain things happened.”
