J.K. Rowling’s latest book may be borrowing a little from her real life.
The Harry Potter author is raising eyebrows (yet again) with the plot of her latest novel The Ink Black Heart – part of her Cormoran Strike crime series, which is penned under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.
The new book features a character named Edie Ledwell, a YouTube creator behind a popular cartoon whose fandom turns on her after the cartoon is criticized for being racist, ableist, and transphobic. Apparently, the transphobic accusations come from a cartoon about a hermaphrodite worm.
After the call-outs, Ledwell is doxxed (her home address being put on the internet) and starts to receive rape and death threats, and is ultimately murdered.
The novel paints “Social Justice Warriors” as an evil, coordinated group who are able to plot and pull off a murder of a creator they didn’t like. Still, despite how similar this is to Rowling’s own story of being accused of transphobia and racism and accusing people of doxxing her, the author insists it's a coincidence.
“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.”
This isn’t the first wild “coincidence” like this to happen recently to Rowling. When she released the first Cormoran Strike novel using the pen name Robert Galbraith, some readers noticed that her pen name is the same as Robert Galbraith Heath, a famous anti-LGBTQ+ therapist who was one of the leaders of gay conversion therapy.
Due to the fact that Rowling has become more and more violently transphobic over the last several years, and the fact that the book involves a male serial killer who disguises himself in women’s clothing, many thought that the name connection was on purpose.
“J.K. Rowling wasn't aware of Robert Galbraith Heath when choosing the pseudonym for her crime novels,” a spokesperson for Rowling told Newsweekabout the name, however. “Any assertion that there is a connection is unfounded and untrue.”
Rowling’s latest book is getting terrible reviews, with many pointing out this new strange “coincidence.”
