Four weeks ago J. S. Malekson laid out the evidence from her first readings of Rowling-Galbraith’s Ink Black Heart that Madeline Courson-Miles was pregnant with Strike’s child when he broke off their relationship. See Ink Black Heart: Has Strike Conceived a Child? for that. This exciting possibility, one sure to shake up the relationship of the detective agency partners if true, was met with both support and skepticism from readers. Those who dismissed the idea argued that Strike was much too careful a fornicator to have let this happen.

There is a way, though, that Madeline Finch-Fletchley, I mean ‘Courson-Miles,’ could have become pregnant without alerting Strike to what she was doing. It’s fairly outlandish and has a relatively high ick factor so I wrote the HogwartsProfessor scientist-in-residence, Louise Freeman, to see if this idea was, well, conceivable. I post our discussion after the jump for proof of, if nothing else, that we will consider outrageous possibilities here and we’re not writing for the Nutter File, not yet at least. [Read more…]

Have you ever been reading a book and been surprised by notes being struck that seem like the author is teasing you, maybe even laughing at you personally? As if he or she knows you?

Me, neither. At least not until I read Ink Black Heart.

I am asked at least once at every public talk I give or long conversation I have with a Rowling reader if I have met The Presence or if she knows I exist. I have not met her, have no reasonable expectation to meet her (she has refused for twenty years all interview requests from Potter Pundits and Serious Strikers), and she has not acknowledged the books I have sent her as a courtesy (she did reply to Penguin Books, sort of, when they proposed to give her an advance copy of Harry Potter’s Bookshelf; they were sent a note from her office accepting the offered book and another six weeks later to say Rowling did not have time to read it).

She has, though, made unpleasant comments to The New York Times about writers who have detailed the Christian content of her work, criticism she said that put her off reading book-length studies of her novels. I have, consequently, little to no reason to believe what we do here at HogwartsProfessor or what I have written or said here, in books, or in other venues are ideas or discussions about which Rowling is aware.

It may strike you as a little bizarre, given the investment of my time in the ‘Rowling Artistry and Meaning’ project and how much my public identity is twined with this study, but this ‘No Contact’ status has been no small blessing. I doubt very much, given the chasm separating our religious and political beliefs, not to mention the Grand Canyon between our financial conditions, that we could be friends. The work that I do, too, in examining her novels largely depends on at least the pretense of objectivity, something even access to her office for confirmation or denial of biographical details, one motivation I have had recently for wanting to contact her, might damage or Disapparate.

This being the case here in Gilderoy Glen, more than once during my reading Ink Black Heart  the story made me — and fortunately for my sanity, made others on the moderator channels as well — think Rowling was making reference to things I’ve written or said about her work. If this is of any interest to you, you’re probably a close friend or correspondent; join me after the jump for these very personal, well, reflections. [Read more…]