Ink Black Heart has 102 chapters presented as five Parts with a prologue of four chapters and ‘Coda’ single chapter finish for a total of 107 chapters. The book begins with an epigraph from Mary Elizabeth Coleridge’s poem ‘Doubt,’ the prologue, five parts, and Coda begin with one from Henry Gray’s Gray’s Anatomy on the physical organ of the human heart, and each chapter begins with lines taken from Nineteenth Century English and American women poets.

The epigraphs will be essential to understanding Ink Black Heart. This achieved “We’ve Always Known That” status due to Professor Groves’ explanations in 2017 and 2018 of the poetic bookends of Cuckoo’s Calling and of the Jacobean Revenge Drama pieces introducing each part and chapter with Silkworm. Rowling’s use of Ibsen’s Rosmersholm and Spenser’s Faerie Queenin Strikes 4 and 5 were only confirmation of Groves’ ground-breaking work with Cuckoo and Silkworm. Prof Groves is already on the job with the epigraphs for Strike 6, for which see her Ink-Bottles, Anodos, and Anomie.

In anticipation of Dr Groves’ discussion of these epigraphs, please share your thoughts on the Gray’s Anatomy cardiac selections before the novel’s seven principal divisions and the heart-heavy poetry of Romantic and Viction women poets before the book and each chapter.

At last we have reached the publication date of Ink Black Heart! Whether you have been enjoying the excerpt-teases provided by the publisher or puritanically abstaining (and, no, to me at least, ‘puritan’ is not necessarily pejorative), today we all enjoy Strike6 at last. Rejoice!

If you are still waiting for your copy to arrive in the mail — Amazon had by far the lowest price for the book — I offer today a list of nine things to keep in mind as you read Ink Black Heart and a description of how HogwartsProfessor.com will discuss Rowling-Galbraith’s longest novel to date in the coming week. I’ll also throw in the three best list of predictions for you to reflect on in the few hours — minutes! — before you can dive into a reading at long last. All after the jump! [Read more…]

Rowling sat down today to talk with Graham Norton about Ink Black Heart, with whom she has previously discussed both Lethal White and The Ickabog in publicity junkets pre-publication. Our friends at The Rowling Library promptly found the Virgin Radio audio and posted it at their YouTube channel. Thank you, Mr Tarantino!

The “big news” if you read about this interview, say, at The Daily Mail, was that Rowling turned down an invitation to be in the Hogwarts Reunion party teevee special. I don’t think that makes my top five take-aways from this conversation, which would be: [Read more…]