Transgender writer Gretchen Felker-Martin kills off JK Rowling in horror novel
Miranda Bryant
Friday April 22 2022, 12.01am BST, The Times
Gretchen Felker-Martin and the Harry Potter writer, who dies in a fire in Manhunt
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER RICHARD POHLE
A horror novel by a transgender author that features the death of JK Rowling has been branded “vile, misogynistic drivel”.
Manhunt, by Gretchen Felker-Martin, follows two transgender women’s battle for survival in a post-apocalyptic world in which they face threats from murderous “terfs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) and a virus that turns people with a certain level of testosterone into zombies.
As well as naming Rowling, who has been
accused of transphobia and received death threats over her stance on gender, the novel features a warship called the Galbraith, which appears tobe a reference to Robert Galbraith, the pseudonym Rowling uses for her Cormoran Strike novels. In
Manhunt, Rowling reportedly dies in a fire in a Scottish castle.
Torrey Peters, the trans author whose novel
Detransition, Baby was longlisted for last year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, said the book “Keeps up a relentless velocity while just being plain fun as hell.”
Publishers Weekly praised its “gut-churning prose” and “exploration of mental illness, trauma and dysphoria” but said its plot “doesn’t quite coalesce”. Critics have accused Felker-Martin, an author and film critic from Massachusetts, of making light of violence against women, including the Harry Potter author.
“That this vile, misogynistic drivel found a publisher is deeply depressing,” said Helen Joyce, director of advocacy for the campaign group Sex Matters.
Kathleen Stock, a former philosophy professor who stepped down at Sussex University last year claiming
that she was bullied and harassed over her alleged transphobia, was among those who spoke out against the novel. Citing a tweet in which Felker-Martin said she was thinking of “some terf professor [who] cries about getting bullied” when she wrote a scene about a woman being threatened with hanging, Stock said: “This tweet was written at a time when there were multiple news stories about the ongoing harassment campaign of me on Sussex campus.”
She claimed the “funniest thing” about the novel was that it received a positive review from the US broadcaster National Public Radio. The review, by the trans producer Liam McBain, admitted that reading it was a “challenge” and “not for everyone” but praised it as “disgustingly rendered and brilliantly imagined”. McBain wrote: “It’s rare to read a horror novel that truly tests my limits in a (mostly) pleasurable way — and
Manhunt delivers.”
Karen Varley, co-founder of Women Uniting UK, said it was “astonishing” the book had been published. She added: “‘Terf’ is simply the new term for ‘witch’, making us fair game to be threatened, harassed, and yes, even killed. Astonishing that any responsible publisher would publish this vile male sexual fantasy.”
On Amazon, the novel was denounced as a “misogynist fever-dream” and “like a rapist manifesto”.
One reviewer, Damien D’Enfer, wrote: “Filled with rage and violence towards women, including torture, murder and rape, this hateful book should not be on Amazon. What used to be a movement built on love, the LGBT+ wunderkinds have demolished any goodwill towards our community with the most hateful behaviour imaginable.”
Another, writing as “KG”, wrote: “It feels like a lot of wasted paper and potential. I’m sorry if that’s hurtful. I’m sorry if that feels unfair. But even as a transgender woman myself, I felt extremely alienated by this writing.”
Among those who gave it five stars was Kevin, who said the book was: “A horrific examination of the atrocities committed by those with a smiling face in the name of so called justice”.
Felker-Martin said yesterday that the public criticism was having a positive impact on sales, tweeting: “Interestingly enough, Manhunt had a better first month than her [Rowling’s] first Cormoran Strike novel writing as Robert Galbraith. Until she leaked her identity, the thing wasn’t moving at all.”
A spokeswoman for Rowling declined to comment. Felker-Martin’s publisher Tor Nightfire, an imprint of Macmillan, did not respond to a request to comment.
good thing we're letting this 
