The Hallmarked Man
I’m still reading this book.
On the ethics of reading a Rowling book
I’ll tell you this much: it ain’t great.
The author of this book has repeatedly turned on the queer community in very harmful ways. They’re not a nice person. Robert Galbraith shares a name with Robert Galbraith Heath, the father of conversion therapy. A wild coincidence, as Rowling insists.
The fact stands though that I find the Strike books - and on a recent re-read, the Potter books - to be very comforting to read. They’re easy to fall into and keep you going, hungrily, chapter by chapter. They’re very enjoyable to read and at this moment in my life, one of the highlights of my day, when I find some time to settle down focus on them.
I got the book from the library - drawing the line at buying it myself. I’m aware that the author still gets money; I’m told this gets capped at £6,000 per library book. I can’t believe that Rowling is still money-motivated though. They can’t possibly be.
They may find pride in the number of readers of their books: I hopefully haven’t contributed to that in an impactful way. The book is released a year ago now. I’ve missed the zeitgiest conversations around it. My mom read it ages ago, and my friends have read dozens of books since, and barely remember it to talk about.
With that all in mind, the only person I’d be punishing by not reading this book is myself. I think the series is quite good.
If this was a smaller author, then things would be different.