0:00:02 > 0:00:04Contains some strong language
0:00:04 > 0:00:06JK Rowling is our most successful living author.
0:00:08 > 0:00:12The Harry Potter series sold 450 million copies.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16Since it finished five years ago,
0:00:16 > 0:00:19her fans have been desperate to know what she would do next.
0:00:21 > 0:00:23The answer is this.
0:00:23 > 0:00:25"She knocked again, sooner than she would have done
0:00:25 > 0:00:29"if she had not wanted to distract herself from her own thoughts
0:00:29 > 0:00:33"and this time the distant voice said, 'I'm fucking coming'.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36"The door swung open to reveal a woman who appeared simultaneously
0:00:36 > 0:00:40"childlike and ancient, dressed in a dirty pale blue T-shirt
0:00:40 > 0:00:42"and a pair of men's pyjama bottoms.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46"She was the same height as Kay, but shrunken.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48"The bones of her face and sternum showed sharply
0:00:48 > 0:00:50"through the thin, white skin.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53"Her hair, which was home-dyed, coarse and very red,
0:00:53 > 0:00:55"looked like a wig on top of a skull.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59"Her pupils were miniscule and her chest virtually breastless.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03" 'Hello, are you Terri? I'm Kay Borden from Social Services.
0:01:03 > 0:01:05" 'I'm covering for Matthew Knox."
0:01:05 > 0:01:07"There were silvery pock-marks all over
0:01:07 > 0:01:09"the woman's fragile, grey-white arms
0:01:09 > 0:01:13"and an angry, red open sore on the inside of one forearm.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15"A wide area of scar tissue on her right arm
0:01:15 > 0:01:19"and lower neck gave the skin a shiny, plastic appearance.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22"Kay had known an addict in London who had accidentally set fire
0:01:22 > 0:01:25"to her house and realised too late what was happening.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29" 'Yeah, right', said Terri, after an overlong pause."
0:01:33 > 0:01:35Jo, when I started reading this novel,
0:01:35 > 0:01:38I was, I have to say, incredibly shocked.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40It's full of sex, violence, swearing, drug addiction.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42What's going on?
0:01:42 > 0:01:44Were you really shocked?
0:01:44 > 0:01:47I was shocked because I thought you couldn't be further
0:01:47 > 0:01:50- from Harry Potter. Were you trying to prove something here?- No.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52I wasn't trying to shock anyone.
0:01:52 > 0:01:54I'm a very lucky person.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58You know, Harry Potter's success brought me freedom.
0:01:58 > 0:02:04You know, I feel I don't have to publish again, we can pay our bills.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06This is what I wanted to write.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Yes, it's different, it's contemporary, it's realistic
0:02:09 > 0:02:12and I don't have the constraints of fantasy.
0:02:12 > 0:02:16By which, I mean that there are places you just wouldn't go in fantasy.
0:02:16 > 0:02:18The genre imposes those limits,
0:02:18 > 0:02:20and sex would obviously be one of those limits.
0:02:20 > 0:02:22For two years, writing The Casual Vacancy,
0:02:22 > 0:02:25I kept saying to myself it was a lovely position to be in. I kept thinking,
0:02:25 > 0:02:27"No-one knows what I'm doing. No-one knows these characters.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30"They're just in my head. This is a fantastic place to be."
0:02:30 > 0:02:32It had been so long since I'd had that private world
0:02:32 > 0:02:36and I would think, "I don't have to publish this if I don't want to."
0:02:38 > 0:02:43The Casual Vacancy is set in an idyllic fictional town
0:02:43 > 0:02:45in the south-west of England.
0:02:45 > 0:02:49With its town square, cobbled streets and rolling river,
0:02:49 > 0:02:51picture-perfect Pagford
0:02:51 > 0:02:56seems to be middle-class heaven apart from one thing -
0:02:56 > 0:03:00the Fields - a grim neighbouring council estate
0:03:00 > 0:03:04complete with drug dealers, prostitutes and troubled teenagers.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07I'm interested in that kind of deprivation
0:03:07 > 0:03:13and the idea of what happens in this idyllic - on the surface - place.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15What happens beneath the surface
0:03:15 > 0:03:20and how many ugly attitudes are... running beneath the surface?
0:03:20 > 0:03:23And how the disadvantaged can live so close to the advantaged.
0:03:23 > 0:03:25Yeah. Absolutely.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31One of the disadvantaged is 16-year-old Krystal Weedon,
0:03:31 > 0:03:33the daughter of a heroin addict.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38"Her memories of St Thomas' included in the muttered comments
0:03:38 > 0:03:40"made about by little girls in her class,
0:03:40 > 0:03:41"one or two of whom she had slapped.
0:03:43 > 0:03:46"'When Social Services had allowed her to go back to her mother,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49"her uniform became so tight, short and grubby
0:03:49 > 0:03:52"that letters were sent from school
0:03:52 > 0:03:54"and Nana Cath and Terri had a big row.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56"The other girls at school had not wanted her
0:03:56 > 0:03:59"in their groups except for their rounders teams.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01"She could still remember
0:04:01 > 0:04:04"Lexi Mollison handing everyone in the class a little pink envelope
0:04:04 > 0:04:07"containing a party invitation and walking past Krystal with,
0:04:07 > 0:04:10"as Krystal remembered it, her nose in the air.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14"Only a couple of people had asked her to parties.
0:04:14 > 0:04:18"She wondered whether Fats or his mother remembered that she had
0:04:18 > 0:04:20"once attended a birthday party at their house.
0:04:20 > 0:04:22"Her whole class had been invited
0:04:22 > 0:04:26"and Nana Cath had bought Krystal a party dress
0:04:26 > 0:04:28"so she knew that Fats' huge back garden
0:04:28 > 0:04:30"had a pond and swing and an apple tree.
0:04:30 > 0:04:32"They had eaten jelly and had sack races.
0:04:32 > 0:04:35"Tessa had told Krystal off because,
0:04:35 > 0:04:37"trying desperately hard to win a plastic medal,
0:04:37 > 0:04:40"she had pushed other children out of the way.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42"One of them had had a nosebleed."
0:04:45 > 0:04:49If you were to distil the book into one line it would be,
0:04:49 > 0:04:50"What do we do about Krystal?"
0:04:50 > 0:04:53Krystal is the kind of girl that, I think,
0:04:53 > 0:04:58a huge number of people would simply walk past and think, "Lout."
0:04:58 > 0:05:02She's a 16-year-old girl who is ignorant, promiscuous,
0:05:02 > 0:05:04intermittently violent,
0:05:04 > 0:05:09and the man who dies in the first two pages of the novel
0:05:09 > 0:05:12has managed to kindle a little bit of ambition and self-respect in her.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17The dead man is Barry Fairbrother,
0:05:17 > 0:05:20a warm-hearted, socially progressive parish councillor.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25With his demise, the Fields lose their most vocal
0:05:25 > 0:05:27and influential champion.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30Barry was born there and Barry got out.
0:05:30 > 0:05:34Barry, through his own intelligence and a bit of luck,
0:05:34 > 0:05:38he managed to make his way out and there is just something
0:05:38 > 0:05:42inspirational, I think, for Krystal, in having contact with this man
0:05:42 > 0:05:49who is the living personification of an escape through education.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51So, he leaves the casual vacancy,
0:05:51 > 0:05:55he leaves a vacuum into which a number of people swarm.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58So, then, the idea came to me of a council election
0:05:58 > 0:06:00and that was a perfect way into a small community.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03It was a perfect way into the ideas that I really wanted to explore.
0:06:05 > 0:06:09The Conservative councillors of Pagford are desperate
0:06:09 > 0:06:12to replace Barry with one of their own.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16If they succeed, they'll be able to change the town's boundary
0:06:16 > 0:06:20and reassign the troublesome council estate to the neighbouring city.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24It's not just an election - it's an opportunity.
0:06:26 > 0:06:29"There was nothing, as far as Howard could see, to stop the fielders
0:06:29 > 0:06:31"growing fresh vegetables.
0:06:31 > 0:06:34"Nothing to stop them disciplining their sinister, hooded,
0:06:34 > 0:06:36"spray-painting offspring.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41"Nothing to stop them pulling themselves together as a community and tackling the dirt and shabbiness.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44"Nothing to stop them cleaning themselves up and taking jobs. Nothing at all.
0:06:44 > 0:06:48"So Howard was forced to draw the conclusion that they were
0:06:48 > 0:06:51"choosing, of their own free will, to live the way they lived and that
0:06:51 > 0:06:54"the estate's air of slightly threatening degradation
0:06:54 > 0:06:58"was nothing more than a physical manifestation of ignorance and indolence."
0:07:01 > 0:07:04People in that condition tend to be treated as though they're like mould.
0:07:04 > 0:07:10It just happened, they just sprung up there. Well, something did happen.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13Something, somewhere went wrong in that family. What was it?
0:07:13 > 0:07:15Sometimes that gives you clues.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18- But the answers are often more complex than...- Always.
0:07:18 > 0:07:20..politicians and social workers...
0:07:20 > 0:07:24Oh, no, absolutely. Of course they are. I mean, I think that...
0:07:24 > 0:07:27Yes, and I think the novel shows that. This isn't...
0:07:27 > 0:07:30There is no simple answer to the question,
0:07:30 > 0:07:32"What do we do about Krystal?"
0:07:32 > 0:07:36And that, I think, is sometimes why people lose patience and would rather
0:07:36 > 0:07:40see things in a very black and white way, and it's easier to stigmatise
0:07:40 > 0:07:44and, sort of, shunt these people out of sight and not engage.
0:07:44 > 0:07:48Because it is complex, and that can sometimes feel very hopeless.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50How much do you think
0:07:50 > 0:07:52you're going into some kind of heart of social darkness here?
0:07:54 > 0:07:55Heart of social darkness...
0:07:55 > 0:07:58I think that, well, to me, personally,
0:07:58 > 0:08:02I think it's a place we should go.
0:08:02 > 0:08:05And I think it's a little...
0:08:05 > 0:08:07Is cowardly too strong?
0:08:09 > 0:08:13I don't know. To me, it seems the obvious place to go, you know?
0:08:13 > 0:08:16Where people are...desperate.
0:08:16 > 0:08:21Yes, I'm attracted to that as a subject. Certainly.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24How do you know about it all?
0:08:24 > 0:08:29Well, I've known people like Krystal and, indeed, like Terri.
0:08:29 > 0:08:32I mean, I've had a very peculiar life experience
0:08:32 > 0:08:34when it comes to social mobility, I suppose.
0:08:34 > 0:08:39I was born into a very ordinary, middle-class family
0:08:39 > 0:08:41where there wasn't a great deal of money
0:08:41 > 0:08:43but we weren't deprived in any way.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45I worked as a teacher, I worked for charities,
0:08:45 > 0:08:47I didn't make a great deal.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49You don't make a great deal of money in that situation.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51Then I was, for a few years, very, very poor.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54I was living solely on benefits as a single mother.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56I have been...
0:08:56 > 0:09:00as poor as it's possible to go without being homeless.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02And as we all know, I've become very rich.
0:09:02 > 0:09:08That was certainly an unexpected turn of events. But I've... Yeah.
0:09:08 > 0:09:12I mean, I've known life at real extremes.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15How much did that early experience make you sympathetic
0:09:15 > 0:09:19to the outsider, the ignored, the downtrodden?
0:09:21 > 0:09:22Um...
0:09:24 > 0:09:26I find it hard to say it strongly enough.
0:09:26 > 0:09:29The most powerful experience I had of being the outsider,
0:09:29 > 0:09:31or of being the other,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33was definitely of being very poor.
0:09:33 > 0:09:37We talk about the poor as this homogenous, faceless mass.
0:09:37 > 0:09:39That's how they are discussed.
0:09:39 > 0:09:42It's sometimes with the best intentions of the world,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45but one of the first things to go is often your individuality.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48That you are seen so differently.
0:09:48 > 0:09:49Um...
0:09:49 > 0:09:53And I think if you've been there, you never forget that experience.
0:09:53 > 0:09:55I will never forget that experience.
0:09:57 > 0:10:01"A weight was pressing on Krystal's lungs and her ears were ringing.
0:10:01 > 0:10:05"Obo must have given her mother not a single bag, but a bundle.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07"The social worker had seen her blasted.
0:10:07 > 0:10:10"Terri would test positive at Bell Chapel next time
0:10:10 > 0:10:12"and they would chuck her out again.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14"And without methadone,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17"they would return to that nightmare place where Terri became feral.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20"When she would again start opening her broken-toothed mouth
0:10:20 > 0:10:23"for strangers' dicks so she could feed her veins.
0:10:23 > 0:10:24"And Robbie would be taken away again.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27"And this time, he might not come back."
0:10:29 > 0:10:32One central location in the novel is a drug-rehabilitation clinic
0:10:32 > 0:10:35which is in danger of being closed down.
0:10:35 > 0:10:38And that is actually one of the battlegrounds of the novel.
0:10:38 > 0:10:44Whether people think the undeserving poor are worth saving or not.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48My husband worked for a while at an addiction clinic.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50My husband's a doctor.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54And I would say the thing that struck me most about him working there,
0:10:54 > 0:10:57um...was how precarious its existence constantly was.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01It got funding from a number of different places. And...
0:11:01 > 0:11:03there was always a sense of knife edge about it.
0:11:03 > 0:11:05About whether it would be able to limp on
0:11:05 > 0:11:08and how many people they would be able to employ and so on.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11And, um...I'd never really understood
0:11:11 > 0:11:15how precarious that set-up could be until he worked there.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19I'm looking at quite a lot of addictions in this novel.
0:11:19 > 0:11:21You have the middleclass heavy drinker.
0:11:21 > 0:11:23You have a woman who's sinking a bottle of wine
0:11:23 > 0:11:26every time she uncorks a bottle, or more.
0:11:26 > 0:11:28Um...that's acceptable.
0:11:28 > 0:11:30That's winked at. Everyone does that.
0:11:30 > 0:11:33No-one thinks twice about her.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36We have a couple of people who are using food
0:11:36 > 0:11:40in a way that an addict uses an illicit substance,
0:11:40 > 0:11:42um...to anaesthetise and to comfort.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45I'm interested in the moral weight, if you like,
0:11:45 > 0:11:47that we give to different kinds of addiction.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50I'm very interested in how much
0:11:50 > 0:11:53various addictions cost society in all kinds of ways.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57You make a big parallel in the novel between the expense of that
0:11:57 > 0:12:01and the expensive of a middleclass man's heart condition, for example.
0:12:01 > 0:12:05For a long time, the novel, in my head, was called Responsible.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07That was my working title.
0:12:07 > 0:12:11Um...because a central theme, possibly the central theme,
0:12:11 > 0:12:13is responsibility.
0:12:13 > 0:12:17How much each of us, individually,
0:12:17 > 0:12:20is responsible for where we find ourselves in life.
0:12:20 > 0:12:24And then how responsible are we for other people's happiness.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26From your partner or your child,
0:12:26 > 0:12:30all the way up to society's ills, if you like.
0:12:30 > 0:12:34I think it's a novel about hypocrisy as much as responsibility.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38So that the middleclass characters expect standards of behaviour
0:12:38 > 0:12:40that they don't necessarily display themselves.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42Particularly towards their children.
0:12:42 > 0:12:46They have an incredibly old-fashioned attitude to their adolescent children,
0:12:46 > 0:12:49while shagging all over the place themselves.
0:12:49 > 0:12:52Not EVERYONE is shagging all over the place themselves.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55Um...you're absolutely right about hypocrisy.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58A lot of people sit in judgement of the Weedon family.
0:12:58 > 0:13:01And, um...it is right that the Weedon family is looked at.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06There are issues galore within that family that need to be looked at.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09But some of the people doing the looking,
0:13:09 > 0:13:14their own family lives might not bear too much examination.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19"I wouldn't trust Krystal to look after a boiling egg," said Miles, and Samantha laughed again.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23"Oh, look. It's to her credit she loves her brother, but he isn't a cuddly toy."
0:13:23 > 0:13:25"Yes, I know that," snapped Kay,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28remembering Robbie's shitty crusted bottom.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30"But he's still loved."
0:13:30 > 0:13:33"Krystal bullied our daughter Lexi," said Samantha.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35"So we've seen a different side of her
0:13:35 > 0:13:37"to the one I'm sure she shows you."
0:13:37 > 0:13:40"Look, we all know Krystal's had a rough deal," said Miles.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43"Nobody's denying that. It's the drug-addled mother I've got an issue with."
0:13:43 > 0:13:48"As a matter of fact, she's doing very well on the Bell Chapel programme at the moment."
0:13:48 > 0:13:51"But with her history," said Miles, "it isn't rocket science, is it,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54"to guess that she'll relapse."
0:13:54 > 0:13:57"If you apply that rule across the board, you ought not to have a driving licence.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01"Because with your history, you're bound to drink and drive again."
0:14:03 > 0:14:05In many ways, although this is very, very dark,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08it starts as a comedy, doesn't it?
0:14:08 > 0:14:11I mean, it is a kind of satire about contemporary Britain.
0:14:11 > 0:14:15I don't know... I wouldn't call it satire. Honestly.
0:14:15 > 0:14:20It is comic in places, but I don't really think it's a black comedy.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22I think it's a comic tragedy.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26- And is that how you...?- View life?
0:14:26 > 0:14:28Yeah. Yeah, absolutely!
0:14:28 > 0:14:31I don't think I know an unusual cross-section of people,
0:14:31 > 0:14:35and I think people's lives generally are more absurd,
0:14:35 > 0:14:39sadder, funnier, stranger...
0:14:39 > 0:14:43than your average soap opera would make it appear, actually.
0:14:43 > 0:14:45Or many books would make it appear.
0:14:45 > 0:14:50- Cos you...- But then, if you depict that, you're called a satirist.
0:14:50 > 0:14:53But I don't think I'm writing satire.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56In one way, the disadvantaged Krystal Weedon and her family
0:14:56 > 0:14:59are described with great social realism, I think.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01And the middleclass people
0:15:01 > 0:15:05are described in quite a comic way sometimes.
0:15:05 > 0:15:08And I wonder whether that's entirely...
0:15:08 > 0:15:10- Fair.- ..fair.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14Well, clearly, I'm middleclass. I mean, I'm not, um...
0:15:14 > 0:15:17I'm not...I don't in the slightest believe
0:15:17 > 0:15:20that this is all the middleclass' fault.
0:15:20 > 0:15:26Um...having said that, there are people like Howard
0:15:26 > 0:15:30who espouse exactly those attitudes, and, um...who talk in that way.
0:15:30 > 0:15:32I mean, I don't think that's satire.
0:15:32 > 0:15:35In fact, if anything, I think I've toned him down a bit.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37SHE LAUGHS
0:15:37 > 0:15:40Obviously, you have a left-of-centre position on this.
0:15:40 > 0:15:42Yes. However...
0:15:42 > 0:15:45I can totally understand the attitude that says,
0:15:45 > 0:15:48"Oh, God, don't let Krystal be in my child's class."
0:15:48 > 0:15:51But...I do get angry
0:15:51 > 0:15:55when I hear people talk and I think,
0:15:55 > 0:16:00"Can you not engage your imagination to the tiniest degree
0:16:00 > 0:16:04"so that you understand what it might be like not to be you?"
0:16:04 > 0:16:08And I don't just mean imagining what it would be like to be homeless
0:16:08 > 0:16:13or imagining what it would be like to, um...have to live on benefits,
0:16:13 > 0:16:16though some people would benefit from knowing what that felt like.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19But, er...even to the small degree
0:16:19 > 0:16:23that they... Some people fail to appreciate
0:16:23 > 0:16:26that not everyone has their life experience.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29Just, just try and imagine.
0:16:29 > 0:16:30I find that frustrating.
0:16:30 > 0:16:32There are few people who are truly capable
0:16:32 > 0:16:35of thinking outside their own personal experience.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37Which is the novelist's job.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40It is. And if the novelist is worth their salt,
0:16:40 > 0:16:42they'll be able to think themselves into
0:16:42 > 0:16:43all sorts of people's experience.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47It doesn't necessarily make them a better person, but that is the job.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52Shirley's eyes were fixed respectfully on her knees
0:16:52 > 0:16:55and her hands were clasped, apparently in prayer.
0:16:55 > 0:16:56But she was really mulling over
0:16:56 > 0:17:00Howard and Parminder's little exchange about the sari.
0:17:00 > 0:17:02Shirley belonged to a section of Pagford
0:17:02 > 0:17:05that quietly lamented the fact that the old vicarage,
0:17:05 > 0:17:07which had been built long ago
0:17:07 > 0:17:09to house a High-Church vicar with mutton-chop whiskers
0:17:09 > 0:17:12and a starched-apron staff,
0:17:12 > 0:17:14was now home to a family of Hindus.
0:17:14 > 0:17:18Shirley had never quite grasped what religion the Jawandas were.
0:17:18 > 0:17:22She thought that if she and Howard went to the temple or the mosque
0:17:22 > 0:17:25or wherever it was the Jawandas worshipped,
0:17:25 > 0:17:27they would doubtless be required to cover their heads
0:17:27 > 0:17:30and remove their shoes, and who knew what else.
0:17:30 > 0:17:32Otherwise, there would be outcry.
0:17:32 > 0:17:36Yet it was acceptable for Parminder to flaunt her sari in church.
0:17:36 > 0:17:39It was not as though Parminder did not have normal clothes,
0:17:39 > 0:17:41for she wore them to work every day.
0:17:41 > 0:17:43The double standard of it all was what rankled.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46Not a thought for the disrespect it showed to their religion.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49And, by extension, to Barry Fairbrother himself,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52of whom she was supposed to have been so fond.
0:17:54 > 0:17:56There's a wonderful irony in the book.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58There's lots of scenes set around and in the church.
0:17:58 > 0:18:00And no-one ever goes there.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02Yeah. I like that, too.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04The dominant religion of the book is Sikhism.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06Yeah. Well...
0:18:06 > 0:18:09Why? Why? What attracts you to Sikhism?
0:18:09 > 0:18:12All its egalitarianism. And it's an amazing religion.
0:18:12 > 0:18:17My interest was sparked years and years and years ago when I was in my 20s.
0:18:17 > 0:18:21And a girl I worked with briefly who was from a Sikh family.
0:18:21 > 0:18:24And we only ever had one serious conversation on the subject,
0:18:24 > 0:18:28but it stuck with me. It's always stuck with me.
0:18:28 > 0:18:31She told me about the fact that men and women
0:18:31 > 0:18:35are explicitly described as equal in the holy book.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37And that women are not excluded
0:18:37 > 0:18:41from any part of religious rites or observance.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43I thought, "My God! Really?"
0:18:43 > 0:18:47I wanted to have a family of colour in Pagford.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51The Jawandas are a very archetypal middleclass family.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55A two-doctor family. Three, three attractive children.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59And they bring out a lot of feelings in the people around them.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02Pagford is a very white place. I grew up in a very white place.
0:19:02 > 0:19:08Um...and that was an interesting way to examine, um...
0:19:08 > 0:19:11well, certain attitudes within Pagford.
0:19:11 > 0:19:16And clearly, in a novel that's about exclusion and prejudice
0:19:16 > 0:19:19and outsider status and division,
0:19:19 > 0:19:22well, they had to be Sikhs, didn't they? They had to be Sikhs.
0:19:23 > 0:19:24"Slowly, very slowly,
0:19:24 > 0:19:27"her family seemed to be putting themselves to bed at last.
0:19:27 > 0:19:32"Jas spent a long time in the bathroom, clinking and crashing around.
0:19:32 > 0:19:35"Sukhvinder waited until Jas had finished primping herself,
0:19:35 > 0:19:38"until her parents had stopped talking in their room,
0:19:38 > 0:19:40"for the house to fall silent.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43"Then, at last, it was safe.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47"She sat up and pulled the razorblade out from a hole
0:19:47 > 0:19:49"in the ear of her old cuddly rabbit.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53"She stole the blade from Vikram's store in the bathroom cabinet.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56"She got off the bed and groped for the torch on her shelf
0:19:56 > 0:19:57"and a handful of tissues.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00"Then moved into the furthest part of her room,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03"into the little round turret in the corner.
0:20:03 > 0:20:06"Here, she knew the torch's light would be confined
0:20:06 > 0:20:08"and would not show around the edges of the door.
0:20:08 > 0:20:11"She sat down with her back against the wall,
0:20:11 > 0:20:13"pushed up the sleeve of her nightshirt
0:20:13 > 0:20:17"and examined by torchlight the marks left by her last session.
0:20:17 > 0:20:22"Still visible, crisscrossed and dark on her arm, but healing.
0:20:22 > 0:20:23"With a slight shiver of fear
0:20:23 > 0:20:26"that was a blessed relief in its narrow, immediate focus,
0:20:26 > 0:20:29"she placed the blade halfway up her forearm
0:20:29 > 0:20:31"and sliced into her own flesh."
0:20:36 > 0:20:38The daughter in the Sikh family
0:20:38 > 0:20:41does something that I think every parent of a teenage girl
0:20:41 > 0:20:44- is terrified of, which is self-harm. - Yes.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46Why?
0:20:46 > 0:20:48The Casual Vacancy for me...
0:20:48 > 0:20:50means lots of different things.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53One of the things it means is the emptiness
0:20:53 > 0:20:55that nearly everyone carries in them.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57And very single character in this book
0:20:57 > 0:21:02is seeking to fill an emptiness, a lack in their life.
0:21:02 > 0:21:05Sukhvinder is trying to...
0:21:05 > 0:21:07It's an act of expiation.
0:21:07 > 0:21:09It's a way of releasing pain.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12What attracts you to writing about adolescents?
0:21:12 > 0:21:15Teenagers can be incredibly fragile.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19Are almost always very fragile, actually.
0:21:19 > 0:21:21But I don't think I sentimentalise teenagers.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25A couple of them are real little bastards, as well, in this book.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28And some of their behaviour is atrocious.
0:21:28 > 0:21:34But they also occasionally light on real profundities and truths
0:21:34 > 0:21:37that some of the adults aren't that interested in getting out,
0:21:37 > 0:21:38or would prefer to ignore.
0:21:38 > 0:21:42So they are this... as I think teenagers are,
0:21:42 > 0:21:46this curious mixture of truth teller and seeker,
0:21:46 > 0:21:51and obtuse and sometimes very destructive force.
0:21:53 > 0:21:54Draco.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56Years ago, I knew a boy
0:21:56 > 0:21:59who made all the wrong choices.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03- Please let me help you. - I don't want your help!
0:22:04 > 0:22:06Don't you understand?
0:22:06 > 0:22:08I have to do this!
0:22:09 > 0:22:11I have to kill you.
0:22:11 > 0:22:12Or he's going to kill me.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15This is a radically different book,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18but there are some echoes of the themes from Harry Potter.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20I think that's fair. I think that's true.
0:22:20 > 0:22:23It's like your DNA. You can't...
0:22:23 > 0:22:26Well, I don't think a writer can...
0:22:26 > 0:22:29er...disguise their DNA, if you will.
0:22:29 > 0:22:34So probably everything I write will ultimately be about death
0:22:34 > 0:22:36and morality.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38I'll probably never be able to...
0:22:38 > 0:22:42Because that's what I think about. That's what consumes and obsesses me.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44Those are the things I think about all the time.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Why are you so obsessed with those themes?
0:22:47 > 0:22:52Mortality, I suppose, I was very young when my mother
0:22:52 > 0:22:54was diagnosed with an illness that was...
0:22:54 > 0:22:56she was unlucky enough to get in a very severe form.
0:22:56 > 0:23:00It's not always that severe, but with my mother, it was.
0:23:00 > 0:23:03So I suppose from a relatively early age,
0:23:03 > 0:23:06I was very conscious of mortality.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09Um...it wasn't just my mother.
0:23:09 > 0:23:12My sister and I were born into quite an old family.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15Not in the sense of noble, but in the sense of aged.
0:23:15 > 0:23:18We were the only people in our generation.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21And funerals happened quite a lot in our youth.
0:23:21 > 0:23:25So I suppose probably the death thing comes from there.
0:23:25 > 0:23:27If I'm honest, morality, I don't really understand
0:23:27 > 0:23:30why everyone isn't completely obsessed with morality.
0:23:30 > 0:23:34But, um...they're not. I know that for a fact.
0:23:34 > 0:23:35But I am.
0:23:35 > 0:23:39But do you see yourself as a moral writer?
0:23:39 > 0:23:42Well, I think I am, but, um, I've...
0:23:42 > 0:23:45My books have been burned and I've had death threats.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48So, apparently, some people don't.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51I think...yeah, I think I'm a pretty moral writer.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53Can you remember when you first became aware
0:23:53 > 0:23:58that society wasn't perhaps as just as it should be?
0:23:58 > 0:24:01Oh, I was really young. I mean...
0:24:01 > 0:24:03I was really young.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05My mum...
0:24:06 > 0:24:10Well, I went to a comprehensive school where I was, um...
0:24:12 > 0:24:13I can remember...yeah.
0:24:13 > 0:24:16I can remember all kinds of things going on.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20And people were clearly from families who were very different from mine.
0:24:20 > 0:24:25And, um...coping with things at home that...
0:24:25 > 0:24:29Er...not many of us have had to cope with.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33Did it make you want to change things?
0:24:35 > 0:24:37Um...
0:24:37 > 0:24:39Y-Yeah. Yes.
0:24:39 > 0:24:43But this wasn't written as a political polemic.
0:24:43 > 0:24:47This is, this is, I think, a very character-driven novel.
0:24:47 > 0:24:52Although you say this isn't a political novel, it is political...
0:24:52 > 0:24:55It's political in the broadest sense, isn't it? I mean...
0:24:55 > 0:24:59in the final analysis, virtually everything is political.
0:24:59 > 0:25:03So, um...what I mean is
0:25:03 > 0:25:07that I do not think there are black-and-white answers here
0:25:07 > 0:25:10and I don't think that any single political party
0:25:10 > 0:25:14has the monopoly on the solution to these problems.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Barry Fairbrother got out of his council estate upbringing in the Fields.
0:25:18 > 0:25:20He had social mobility, as it were.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22Do you think there's less social mobility
0:25:22 > 0:25:26for people who are Barry's teenage age now?
0:25:27 > 0:25:29I really... I mean,
0:25:29 > 0:25:33I fear for teenagers now in that situation, definitely.
0:25:33 > 0:25:35Statistics show that social mobility
0:25:35 > 0:25:39has slowed a lot in the last decade or so,
0:25:39 > 0:25:42which is incredibly depressing.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44Um...yeah, it's incredibly depressing.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47And I shudder to think what would happen, what will happen
0:25:47 > 0:25:52to teenagers born into that kind of situation right...
0:25:52 > 0:25:55or living in that kind of situation now, what their future will hold.
0:25:55 > 0:25:57Because it does seem that the poverty trap
0:25:57 > 0:26:01is shut just as tightly as ever it was.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04Would you say this is a novel more about broken people than broken Britain?
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Definitely. Definitely. I hate the phrase "broken Britain".
0:26:08 > 0:26:10I think it's trite, simplistic,
0:26:10 > 0:26:13and it's, it's about, um...
0:26:13 > 0:26:15you know, political point scoring and talking points.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18And it's the kind of thing I loathe. And I think it's...
0:26:20 > 0:26:23That kind of sloganeering is the antithesis,
0:26:23 > 0:26:24I think, of what needs to happen.
0:26:24 > 0:26:28We need to acknowledge the complexity of these situations,
0:26:28 > 0:26:31but unfortunately, democracy being the beauty parade it is,
0:26:31 > 0:26:36everything gets reduced to very black and white, um...
0:26:36 > 0:26:37Yeah, I suppose, slogans, often.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40Broken Britain, I feel, was one of those.
0:26:40 > 0:26:43In this book, it seems that there are people,
0:26:43 > 0:26:45some of whom have more choices than others.
0:26:45 > 0:26:48Well, that's where it gets interesting.
0:26:48 > 0:26:51How much do we blame Krystal for how she behaves?
0:26:51 > 0:26:54And people will...I know quite a few people have now read the book
0:26:54 > 0:26:57and people have very different views on that, which is good.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59Which is what I want. But, um...
0:26:59 > 0:27:01I think I would go so far as to say
0:27:01 > 0:27:05I don't think I've got anything to say to a person
0:27:05 > 0:27:10who doesn't want to save Krystal Weedon. Put it that way.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12So if someone reads the book
0:27:12 > 0:27:15and just can't really see the point in that,
0:27:15 > 0:27:19then I literally don't think I have anything to say to that person,
0:27:19 > 0:27:22and they probably would have nothing to say to me.
0:27:22 > 0:27:24How will you react if people hate it?
0:27:26 > 0:27:30Well, if people hate it, then I will suck that up,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33as my teenage daughter would say.
0:27:33 > 0:27:37Any writer would rather people liked it
0:27:37 > 0:27:41or enjoyed it or got something...worthwhile from it.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Any... You know, I'd absolutely be lying if I said,
0:27:44 > 0:27:47"Oh, no, no, no, I don't care." Of course I care!
0:27:47 > 0:27:48But...
0:27:50 > 0:27:53..I had the most amazing experience with Harry Potter.
0:27:53 > 0:27:56It was very, very popular and people loved the books.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00And, you know, that will stay with me forever. It was wonderful.
0:28:00 > 0:28:04I think some people will like it and some people won't, I'm sure of that.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06- It's published tomorrow.- Yes.
0:28:06 > 0:28:09I think that you may be in for a very bumpy ride.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11Well, if I am, I am. I mean...
0:28:13 > 0:28:14Hindsight's a funny thing.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18You know what, there were bumpy times with Harry, too. And, um...
0:28:19 > 0:28:22..I'm a very fortunate woman. And if I am in for a bumpy ride,
0:28:22 > 0:28:25that's not the worst thing that can happen to me.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27- Thank you, Jo.- Thank you.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd