JK Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling - A Book By Any Other Author’s Name Might Not Sell As Sweet

At eleven this morning I awoke to a whole cocktail of confused emotions that had little to do with my long night out, and everything to do with the baffling and exciting news that a new J.K. Rowling novel had hit shelves without my ever having heard of it. And what’s more is that is came out three months ago!

The Scottish author known the world over for her seven-volume long tale about the boy wizard, Harry Potter, has released her second non-fantasy book in the past year by the title The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the unassuming pseudonym Robert Galbraith. The crime-thriller has fared decently well even without “Rowling” printed in big letters across the front (and shockingly enough for a crime novel, the author is displayed only as a small, white after-thought in the bottom right corner of the cover) and is consistently receiving four and five stars on Amazon and Barnes and Noble alike.

With a title reminiscent of many an Agatha Christie novel, The Cuckoo’s Calling tells the story of one Detective Strike as he investigates a supermodel’s supposed suicide and has been called “totally engrossing” and a “remarkably assured debut”. Well, there’s a good reason for it being so assured—the author has only sold, what? Five hundred million copies? With so much pressure, it is not unexpected that Rowling would want to put her work out into the world and receive more honest, refreshing input on her work than the most common comment on her last book, The Causal Vacancy “It wasn’t at all like Harry Potter.” The freedom to escape from a world expecting only more tales of the magical realm would be a welcome treat to see how her writing itself is received after sixteen years of “Of course this is great,” followed up by “This isn’t as great because it’s not what I expected.”

In one press statement, she remarked that “It has been wonderful to publish without hype or expectation, and pure pleasure to get feedback under a different name.”

Since the news has hit papers and the web early this morning, Amazon sales have skyrocketed 150,000% according to The NewStatesmen.com.

As a reviewer who writes under a pseudonym (which unfortunately has nothing to do with being a renowned and filthy rich author—or does it?) I can understand the need to remain anonymous. Other reviewers and critics seem to be on both ends of the spectrum. Many are praising her choice to get a real, honest opinion of her writing and story-telling ability through the use of a pen name, while others are calling it “escaping from fans and the general views of her work.” The latter might possibly be the horrible sort of people that I would not get along with.

While the Harry Potter series received nothing but excellent reviews throughout, her novel released last September (of which you can read my review here) received many mixed opinions that developed largely from the fact that it was devoid of wands, owls, and lighting-bolt shaped scars, and that is what most of the literate world has come to expect from this rag-to-riches author.

Be it under the name J.K. Rowling or Robert Galbraith, I plan to delve open-eyed into any book she releases and take it for what I find buried deep in the many pages she’s so famous for, regardless of the genre. I solemnly swear I will get to the end, before I judge it no good.