Book review: The Silkworm by J.K. Rowling (as Robert Galbraith)
When first-time detective fiction writer Robert Galbraith was revealed last year to be the pseudonym of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, the usual racket ensued. It might have been only a matter of time, given the immense fame that has stormed Rowling since the Potter books gained traction. Amidst the twittering and tittering (many felt and had no qualms declaring that the reveal must be a marketing ploy, a theory both Rowling and the firm responsible for the reveal have dispelled) there was a bit of a wistful note from the author. She, and the very few people who were in on the secret, would have liked it if her time as Robert Galbraith had gone on a bit longer.
Still, the little time she spent as Robert Galbraith has proven enough; the first novel featuring Cormoran Strike, The Cuckoo’s Calling, has done well both critically and commercially even pre-reveal. Even without the massive jump in sales after his true identity was let known, Robert Galbraith enjoys comparable success as an author. Writing under a pseudonym had been “liberating,” said Rowling, and it had allowed her the chance to experience being a writer at the beginning of a career once again.
This time around, with the second Cormoran Strike novel, there is no big reveal — but there is the inevitable cloud of Galbraith’s true identity to hang over our reading. You can’t really forget about Harry Potter when it practically defined a generation (or two). Rowling gets that, which is why she attempted the pseudonym in the first place. So The Silkworm is an interesting read, because it deals with a world she is extremely familiar with: publishing.
When our one-legged, ex-military detective takes on the case of a missing writer from the writer’s wife, he hardly knows why. But the case rapidly becomes a case of bizarre and meticulous murder, one that takes him and his bright-eyed assistant (Side-kick? Partner?) Robin Ellacott through agents and editors, rival novelists and of course, mistresses. The murdered writer has just finished a manuscript (the English title of which serves as the title of the novel) rife with nasty depictions of nearly everyone he knows, barely concealing all their dirty secrets, and Strike has to figure out who would want kill him for it.
Many, as it turns out. The world of the celebrity was already well depicted in The Cuckoo’s Calling, but The Silkworm delves into the quieter (but no less vicious) world of publishing, a different kind of fame animal. Beneath the surface of respectable print, there are the egotistical writers, the prideful editors, the shrewd publishers. There’s everyone in between, assistants and aids, mistresses and manservants. No stone is left unturned, nor un-scrutinized — we get all their jealousies and foibles, dreams and despairs, aspirations and pretensions. Whatever her relationship with fame is, Rowling’s fictional approach to it is masterful — she knows exactly what it does to different people, how it makes them feel, and how they will react; she knows exactly how to infuse it into the novel.
Following the pattern of classic whodunnits, meaning the actual detecting involves a lot of interviews and staking out as opposed to Sherlockian locked room mysteries, readers will nevertheless find reasons to stick around and keep turning the page. Detective fiction of this kind is a great fit for Rowling, not just because she had seven books of practice (part of what made the Harry Potter series such compelling reading was that every book had some kind of main mystery that the kids would solve), but because she knows her characters so well and tells her story so judiciously that investment in the drama of the crime is worth it. Her chops as a great storyteller have only sharpened; her style lets her move through the narrative easily but with self-assurance. Darkly humorous and true to itself, The Silkworm manages to poke, prod, and slowly unmask not only the killer, but all of the people who make that world turn.
And it makes for a lot of fun topics. There’s the usual, pointed bits about fame and the media, but there’s also the somewhat bleak state of marriage, of having children and settling down; of being lower class, less privileged, disabled, or mentally ill; there’s the state of publishing and the situations writers as authors often find themselves in a rapidly changing industry. There are a lot of great lines and great moments, like my favorite one touching on the digital age: “With the invention of the internet, any subliterate cretin can be Michiko Kakutani.” (Ouch, but then the line is said by the same established novelist who snarls that ‘women generally, by virtue of their desire to mother, are incapable of the necessarily single-minded focus anyone must bring to the creation of literature, true literature.’ Rowling’s voice, in even the most antithetical of her characters, is scarily authentic).
Like the first novel, it can read a bit long. It’s 455 pages on hardback, which is admittedly standard fare for Harry Potter, and might just be a bit of sales logic at work (twenty pounds for four hundred and fifty-five pages in hardback could be worse, one supposes), though the build up is worth it. And as far as British crime novels go, it probably isn’t doing anything especially edgy or cool. Rowling takes some tropes and manoeuvres around them so that they aren’t tiresome, but for the most part it takes the traditional route.
That said, it’s a solid sequel, and not a mediocre disappointment in the way many of the bestsellers’ second instalments can be. Adults picking up Cormoran Strike novels may stand a good chance of understanding what it is about Rowling’s books that had children so hooked; there is something of an un-put-down-able quality in her writing that is hard to resist on a free Sunday. Fans and newcomers alike will have reasons to buy and enjoy the read for sure. And of course, if picking up The Silkworm means finding out that the bookish folk of the publishing world might be filled with a lot of murderous egotistical writers, well… maybe we should all think twice before we rush to judge Rowling for her fame and wealth again.
