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BOOK REVIEW:
J.K. ROWLING: A BIOGRAPHY

Author: Sean Smith
Publishing Information: Michael O'Mara Books, Ltd., London, England, 2001, 224 pages.
Price: £16.99 (About $24.50 U.S.)

Notable Item #1: Finally, the first real attempt at a comprehensive biography of J.K. Rowling.

Notable Item #2: Rowling is NOT happy this book was published.

It's an unauthorized biography. Sean Smith, a former gossip columnist, frankly airs all of Rowling's laundry, including the dirty stuff. The juicy stuff is here, from an apparent misrepresentation of her birthplace, to an alleged feud with her dad, to possibly being slapped up by her ex-husband in Portugal.

While Sean Smith, like other Rowling biographers, dipped into all the articles and interviews about her, he also at least made the effort to conduct interviews with the Harry Potter scribe's friends and colleagues. The big one -- an interview with Rowling herself -- was never achieved. About the closest Smith got to her was briefly speaking to Roger Moore, the Edinburgh businessman married to her sister, Dianne, and a co-owner of Nicolson's Cafe.

Smith is a former London Daily Mirror reporter and columnist and author of several other books. He could not interview Rowling, but he did his best. Some of his reporting about the skeletons in Rowling's closet have upset her.

He says that Rowling was really born in Yate, in Gloucester Country, England, and not Chipping Sodbury, as she always says. Smith even reproduces the writer's birth certificate, which does say "Cottage Hospital, Yate." Smith says this was probably because Yate was more of a blue collar place, compared to the more elegant, upper middle class Chipping Sodbury.

Smith interviewed Rowling's teachers from as many of her schools as possible, from Tutshill Primary to Exeter University. He also tracked down a friend from Exeter. What emerges is a quiet, book-obsessed girl with an imagination in overdrive.

She goes to schools, clad in the usual uniform these English classrooms demanded, and participates in Brownie Girl Scouts. She plays witches, complete with broomsticks, costumes and spells, with two kids named Potter who live across the street.

Smith points out an irony -- while Rowling has said her youthful self is the basis for intelligent Hermione Granger, she was an average student in some years. As Rowling enters Wyedean, she began to be viewed as a "swot" -- a British slang term for a nerd or brainy person. The teen Rowling also becomes a little rebellious, idolizing writer and proud socialist Jessica Mitford and dreaming of moving from acoustic to electric guitar. (Her mother, Anne Volant Rowling, also was an accomplished guitarist.)

At Exeter University, things begin to change. Rowling goes for what was "alternative" music in the 1980s, such as the Smiths and Johnny Marr. She starts to smoke and drink strong coffee and lives a life American college students would know -- parties, bar hopping and hanging out at the student center.

To her parents, Rowling appears rudderless, and they pressure her to become a secretary because it's more practical. She wants to write, but ends up heeding "Mum and Dad" and doing clerical work until opportunity beckons in Portugal.

The full description of the failed relationship with journalism student and army veteran Jorge Arantes has not pleased Rowling. It's all painfully laid out -- the arguments, the jealousy, Rowling's loneliness, a miscarriage about a year before Jessica's birth. You even see the Arantes-Rowling marriage license, in Portuguese. There are photos of the couple and their baby daughter.

The subsequent end to the relationship -- in which Arantes may have slapped her as they argued over Jessica -- and flight to Edinburgh follow. There also is brief poverty, clinical depression and people stigmatizing her for being on welfare.

Where Smith stumbles is when he conjectures too much about how Rowling's life relates to Harry Potter. Straying from facts leads to making assumptions and guesses. While she said Dursley comes from a Gloucester County city of the same name, Smith jumps to the conclusion that another city, Dudley, lent a name to a terrible little boy. He also speculates that a small, shy blond boy from Wyedean Comprehensive School was the basis for Neville Longbottom.

In another instance, he quotes whole passages and synopses from her favorite books to show how they influenced the Harry Potter series. Smith tries to prove that Elizabeth Goudge's The Little White Horse, which includes detailed descriptions of food, probably inspired Rowling to do the same with the feasts in Hogwarts' Great Hall.

Smith also does not have solid evidence that Rowling became alienated from her father, Peter, because he married his secretary, Janet Gallivan, just two years after Anne died of multiple sclerosis at age 45. He strongly suggests it, though. Apparently Peter Rowling and Gallivan began living together a few months after Anne died, and Gallivan had left her husband and two sons for Peter.

Smith also goes off on tangents getting into the lives of Goudge and Jessica Mitford, her life's hero, trying to compare these women to Rowling. Some of his trivia, such as the fact that one of Portugal's most famous poems is about the Philosopher's Stone (original title of The Sorcerer's Stone), is interesting, but it detracts from a direct focus upon the HP creator.

But overall, this is the best J.K. Rowling biography so far, unauthorized or not. You get a sense of a girl rising from quiet, average beginnings in England's West Country and becoming one of the wealthiest writers in the world today.

The book also appears ready-made to be picked up for the American market -- the British edition I have already has U.S. dollar equivalents in parentheses next to all references to English pounds.

Fans will have to wait for the ultimate "Philosopher's Stone" of biographies, however; one that uses fresh material from Rowling and more of her family. But until now, Smith's book will have to do.

NOTE: This book is not yet out in the United States. American readers will have to go to through a British mail order house or online bookseller, such as Amazon UK.