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The Chicago Sun-Times 9 July 2000
English crowds give author star treatment at launching
London J.K. Rowling couldn't find the exact word to describe her reaction as her latest Harry Potter book went on sale Saturday. "I'm amazed-think of a stronger word and double it," Rowling said at King's Cross Station, where she launched the book in England . Parents scuffled and children wept as Rowling was greeted more like a film star than a writer. She described the pandemonium surrounding her latest book as "complete madness." Across Britain and the United States , parents and children stayed up into the early-morning hours Saturday to get the 734-page book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It's twice as long as previous Harry Potter stories.
"It was the hardest so far to write. It's a long book," Rowling said. "It's the culmination of 10 years' work. There was a lot of external pressure this time. "I knew it was going to be longer than the third, but I was surprised at how long it was. That's how long it needed to be to tell the story." Rowling, a single mother from Edinburgh , Scotland , knew she had shattered the record for advance orders with 5 million globally even before she embarked on the nationwide publicity tour to promote the latest adventure of her hero, a bespectacled teenage wizard.
Before leaving King's Cross' Platform 1-transformed into Platform 9 3/4 in honor of Harry Potter's gateway to his mystical world-her fourth book was selling at the rate of up to 350 an hour in large bookshops in Britain. The hoopla Saturday was "certainly not anything I ever expected, far from it. I never dreamed of this," Rowling said. At Waterstone's in Piccadilly, 1,200 copies of the book were snapped up before lunchtime. "It's huge. It's the fastest-selling children's book I've ever known. The kids just couldn't wait to get their hands on it," said Becky Thomas, assistant manager at W.H. Smith.
