JK Rowling invented a character called Barry Fairbrother for The Casual Vacancy - but is the name a jokey reference to the editor who made her name?
Barry Cunningham was the editor
who published the first Harry Potter book by JK Rowling Photo: REX
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Opening her new novel with the death of a pivotal character is a fine way for
JK Rowling to grab the reader’s attention.
For one man, it is also strangely personal. Barry Cunningham, the editor who
published the first Harry Potter book, believes that the character of Barry
Fairbrother is based on him and is Rowling’s joky way of “killing off” links to
her past as a children’s author.
“I can’t believe it’s a coincidence,” he said of Rowling’s choice of name for
Barry, a parish councillor whose death triggers a bitter local
election.
“To have your early editor disposed of in your first adult book can hardly be an accident.”
Rowling had been turned down by a dozen publishers when Cunningham, then an editor at Bloomsbury, read the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1996 and decided to take a chance.
She was paid a £1,500 advance. The seven-book series went on to sell 450 million copies and earn Rowling an estimated £620 million fortune.
Rowling has said: “If it wasn’t for Barry Cunningham, Harry Potter might still be languishing in his cupboard under the stairs. I doubt any of the writers with whom he has worked could be more grateful to him.”
Cunningham left Bloomsbury in 2000 and now runs his own company, Chicken House, which publishes children’s books. He was awarded an OBE in 2010.death symbolises “leaving your editor behind as you move to adult books”.
More at The Telegraph
“To have your early editor disposed of in your first adult book can hardly be an accident.”
Cunningham said he believed the death symbolises “leaving your editor behind
as you move to adult books”.
Not that he is offended - Cunningham said he felt “honoured” and amused to be acknowledged by the author he discovered when she was a struggling single mother.
Not that he is offended - Cunningham said he felt “honoured” and amused to be acknowledged by the author he discovered when she was a struggling single mother.
Rowling had been turned down by a dozen publishers when Cunningham, then an editor at Bloomsbury, read the manuscript of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1996 and decided to take a chance.
She was paid a £1,500 advance. The seven-book series went on to sell 450 million copies and earn Rowling an estimated £620 million fortune.
Rowling has said: “If it wasn’t for Barry Cunningham, Harry Potter might still be languishing in his cupboard under the stairs. I doubt any of the writers with whom he has worked could be more grateful to him.”
Cunningham left Bloomsbury in 2000 and now runs his own company, Chicken House, which publishes children’s books. He was awarded an OBE in 2010.death symbolises “leaving your editor behind as you move to adult books”.
More at The Telegraph
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