JK Rowling’s new book, The Ink Black Heart, has been written under the Harry Potter author’s pseudonym Robert Galbraith and the crime novel is out this week. The premise deals with a creator who faces backlash over their controversial opinion, but the 57-year-old British writer insisted that the parallels to her life aren’t deliberate. 

The sixth instalment of the Cormoran Strike series follows the story of Edie Ledwell, the co-creator of a popular cartoon – The Ink Black Heart. The official synopsis of the book notes that Edie is being “persecuted by a mysterious online figure who goes by the pseudonym of Anomie”, and Rolling Stone reported that Edie “sees internet trolls and her own fandom turn on her after the cartoon was criticized as being racist and ableist as well as transphobic for a bit about a hermaphrodite worm.”

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Initially, detectives aren’t too keen on pursuing the matter but change course when Edie is found tasered and murdered in a cemetery. 

Speaking to celebrated British talk show host, Graham Norton, in a new podcast interview, Rowling noted that the similarities between her life and the plot are mere coincidences. She’s been at the eye of controversy ever since the British author commented on various transgender-related topics on social media, ranging from gender-affirming medical care to bathroom usage.

Norton noted that there were echoes of Rowling’s life, which he realized when reading the tome and the author added that there were more than echoes, but was quick to assert that it didn’t reflect her recent experiences online. “I’d written the book before certain things happened to me online”, Rowling said, adding, “I said to my husband, ‘I think everyone’s going to see this as a response to what happened to me,’ but it genuinely wasn’t”. 

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The first draft of Rowling’s forthcoming work was finished before she faced online criticism for her stance. The author continued, “The fandom within The Black Heart is absolutely not the Potter fandom. I had this idea for the plot — it was about three years ago now — and I said to my two teenagers, ‘Who do you think is the most toxic fandom?’ To my amazement, they mentioned a certain cartoon, um, which I’d seen and thought was very witty and funny.”

While Rowling declined to name the cartoon, she noted that the comment surprised her. “Then I went online and looked and thought, they’re absolutely right. So that’s why it’s an animator in the book. Originally I thought I might make it a comic script writer, but it’s an animator in homage to this particularly toxic fandom”, the Harry Potter writer said.