JKR Unauthorized Biography

[plinsenmayer]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6848
From: plinsenmayer
Subject: JKR Unauthorized Biography
Date: 8/14/00 2:24 pm  (ET)

Hi:

Well, I broke down & bought the recently published unauthorized bio of
JKR. I was very disappointed.

It seemed very hastily thrown together, is replete with typos &
grammatical errors (where were the editors??!!!), and is poorly
researched. The errors are so glaring that I actually physically winced
a few times while reading it.

For one thing, he didn't even get her birthdate right. Bloomsbury's
official HP site confirmed what I thought: she was born the same year I
was, 1965. This Shapiro character has her born in 1966. Don't you think
he could at least get the birthdate/age of his subject correct???

He also conjectures quite alot -- now, mind you, a biographer is forced
to conjecture to some extent. But, a good biographer should convey that
he/she is conjecturing & why. He instead gives the impression that he
has the inside track on Jo's parents' early relationship, when they
announced that baby Jo was expected (Nov 1965, which is interesting
since she was born in July 1965!), etc.

He is also annoyingly inconsistent -- in the same page, he describes Jo as
"painfully shy" and "self-confident & outgoing." Which is it?

He gleaned *all* his information from published interviews. This is to
be expected with an unauthorized bio, but the book is absolutely replete
with inconsistencies & mistakes. He & his editors clearly didn't take
the time to see that one interview that he relied on contradicted others
that he used also. He also clearly couldn't get any of Jo's friends or
family members to grant him any interviews.

I'm also bothered by the fact that he states that Jo conceived the idea
of writing HP in the mid-1980s. Virtually everything I've ever read has
pegged that time period as more like the early 1990s (1992 or so).

All in all I hate the fact that I contributed $5.00 to this guy's scam. He
clearly wrote it just to cash in on all the HP hype. It's also directed
at children btw.

And, he acknowledges that adults love the books but he thinks all such
adults are parents who are reading the books with & to their children.

The other glaring error is that he & his publishers fell into the
Bloomsbury & Scholastic marketing scam -- he refers to the 4th book as
HP & the Doomspell Tournament.

His summaries of the books' plots are simplistic & incorrect in some
places. At one point, he infers that he's read Book IV. But, clearly
since he's referring to it as HP & the Doomspell Tournament, he hasn't.

Well, I'll stop ranting now. But, I hated it, and I wouldn't recommend
anyone buying it. Waste of money IMO.

Penny