OMG Literary News of the Day: The Big Scoop on JKR's Secret Book

   Very, very much has happened in our world this week worthy of note. On this blog, however, only one thing matters--J.K. Rowling, the famed author of the Harry Potter series and a collaborator on several of the Internet's most magical websites* released a book this year and didn't tell anyone.
That's right: Mrs. Rowling, who once joked about releasing her next book under a pseudonym, but claimed she could never pull it off without the media calling her out, published a new book called The Cuckoo's Calling this April under the name Robert Galbraith. Supposedly, Galbraith was a debut mystery writer (the book is a detective story about a supermodel's untimely death), not a world-famous author who's made over $700 million off of her beloved fantasy books and spawned a multi-billion dollar movie franchise and countless pieces of fan fiction. She was ousted after an investigation by The Sunday Times. Apparently, the writing was too confident for a beginner and the newspaper decided to trace its real source.
   Here's the happy part: Rowling's other adult novel (that we know of), a family drama called The Casual Vacancy, didn't do so hot with reviewers after its release last September... but this book got rave reviews! Mainstream critics didn't give it much attention, but fellow mystery authors and the few smaller media outlets who reviewed it couldn't get enough. Publisher's Weekly praised it for, "[Combining] a complex and compelling sleuth and an equally well-formed and unlikely assistant with a baffling crime...A stellar debut." So after Rowling's unfortunate dip onto the B-list of authors, she's back on top.
   Rowling said today that she wishes she could've kept the secret for a little longer. She enjoyed publishing without the usual "J.K. ROWLING HAS A BOOK!" fanfare, she liked reading critiques directed toward an author without a legacy, and I suspect that breaking into yet another genre without anyone noticing removed a lot of pressure from the decision. Furthermore, she's already written the novel's sequel (Do we have a new Arthur Conan Doyle here? And how does this woman write so fast???) and wanted to publish it with her pen name remaining secret. She will still publish the sequel under Robert Galbraith, which I think is a good and predictable choice... it creates continuity, like in ghostwriter/Stratemeyer Syndicate system.
   I also find it interesting that JKR has a new pseudonym, especially since J.K. Rowling was a bit of a pen name in itself. When she published the very first Harry Potter, she created the name from her real own initial (Joanne) and her grandmother's first initial (Kathleen), hoping that the ambiguous-gendered name would help attract boys to her writing as much as girls (I actually feel it's a dominantly male name, reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien). And once again, she's chosen a masculine pen name (reasons unknown).

   Always,

      Your Bibliomaniac

*For some of the "most magical" websites JKR is partially responsible for, check out her website or Pottermore.


And my sources for this current events update (yeah, I use Wikipedia as a source):

• "The Cuckoo's Calling." Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2013.
• "J. K. Rowling." Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 July 2013.
• Kellogg, Carolyn. "J.K. Rowling Secretly Published a Novel in April under a Pseudonym." LA Times. Tribune Newspaper, 14 July 2013. Web. 14 July 2013.