Harry Potter's J.K. Rowling takes a stab at rural life and politics in her first novel for grownups

The self-made literary master of the fantasy world of teenage witches and wizards has turned her attention to the real-life drama of rural politics in a new book out this month. The Casual Vacancy, J.K. Rowling's first adult novel, explores the inner workings of small-town political and personal life in the fictional English village of Pagford, after the death of one of its council members. Though the story is set in England, it could resonate in the U.S. with those familiar with small-town politics. After all, it's our mother country.

Rowling has created "an old-fashioned novel, a thoughtful, angry and densely plotted story in the 19th-century tradition," in which Pagford "is small but its class and racial divisions run deep," Isabel Berwick of The Financial Times reports. The novel explores class divisions between "the posh houses" and inhabitants of Church Row and the Fields, "a sink estate on the outskirks of the neighboring town, Yarvil." The plot centers around the council chair's campaign to fill the vacancy with his son, and then use the council to relieve Pagford of any duty to the Fields. (Read more)