By J. K. Rowling
While Barry Fairbrother dies suddenly in his early forties, the little city of Pagford is left in surprise. Pagford is, probably, an English idyll, with a cobbled marketplace sq. and an old abbey, yet what lies at the back of the beautiful façade is a city at battle. wealthy at warfare with bad, young children at conflict with their mom and dad, better halves at warfare with their husbands, lecturers at battle with their pupils…. Pagford isn't what it first turns out. And the empty seat left through Barry at the town’s council quickly turns into the catalyst for the largest warfare the city has but visible. Who will triumph in an election fraught with ardour, duplicity and unforeseen revelations? Blackly comedian, thought-provoking and consistently striking, The informal Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.
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One always suspects that he must have knitted it himself. ' Vivien, smiling persistently despite the fact that neither man was now paying any attention to her, passed through the gallery towards her small office at the back. She always enjoyed this walk: the gallery was so cool, so pale, so translucent (the paintings seemed to glow on the light grey walls) that it was as if her own feelings were slowly being bleached out of her until she reached her desk as the efficient secretary of Mr Cumberland and Mr Maitland.
The old man quickly took the coin and held it aloft in his right hand as he gave the pamphlet to Philip. ' He took him over to the north porch, the light from the half-closed door illuminating the righthand side of his body, his creased neck, his old overcoat, and his trembling hand with the coin still in it. 'There,' he said, opening the door and pointing out into the street beyond, There's his house. ' Philip looked in the direction to which he was pointing, and could see what looked like a painted surface raised up beside the main road.
Slowly they approached the baptistery. 'He's all written down, he is. ' And in the gently moving light, stained with the colours of the high windows, the old man pored through some pamphlets which had been left for sale beside a 'World in Peril' poster and a scale model of the church itself. ' He held up a pamphlet with the title Thomas Chatterton: Son of Bristol. ' 'You give what you can. ' Philip searched frantically in the pockets of his jeans, and eventually came out with a pound coin. ' The old man quickly took the coin and held it aloft in his right hand as he gave the pamphlet to Philip.