Earlier this month I mentioned that there was a podcast coming soon about JK Rowling and various attempts to cancel her by the right and the left. The first two episodes of the podcast have now been released. Rowling has previously talked about an abusive relationship she was in prior to the publication of her first book. But in part one of the podcast she told the story in more detail than he she has before.

In 1990 when she was just 25, two things happened that changed her life. While riding on a bus she had the idea for the first Harry Potter book and was convinced she needed to write it. Also that same year Rowling’s mother died after a long illness.

Feeling she needed a fresh start, Rowling moved to Portugal where she worked as an English teacher. In her time off she began writing her first novel. Not long after the move, she met a man and they eventually moved in together. She became pregnant and agreed to marry him though she already had concerns about the relationship. And then she had a miscarriage.

She assumed that would be the end of the marriage proposal but in fact her partner pushed for them to still get married. Before long Rowling was pregnant again, but by this point the relationship had turned violent. And when she gave birth to her daughter, she was certain that she needed to escape for good.

In the podcast, Rowling said she tried to leave her former husband, succeeded several times, then went back several times — a pattern experts say is common among people in abusive relationships.

She described a sense of isolation and lack of control during their marriage. “At this point, he’s searching my handbag every time I come home. I haven’t got a key to my own front door because he’s got to control the front door. I think he knew, or suspected, that I was going to try and bolt again,” she said.

She describes this period in her life as “horrible,” because she had to act as though she was not planning to leave the marriage so as not to arouse suspicion. And yet, she continued to write, building on an idea for Harry Potter that she first had while on a train from Manchester to London in 1990, at the age of 25.

Her husband attempted to use the two things she cared most about against her. First her manuscript and then her infant daughter.

“He knew what that manuscript meant to me because at a point he took the manuscript and hid it and that was his hostage,” she said of her ex-husband…

“I would take a few pages of the manuscript into work every day — just a few pages so he wouldn’t realize anything was missing — and I would photocopy it. And gradually in a cupboard in the staff room, bit by bit, a photocopied manuscript grew and grew and grew,” she recalled.

She had made her escape plan but about a week before she was ready she and her husband got in another fight which turned violent. She said he threatened she could never leave because he would keep her daughter. She said that fight ended with her down in the street in front of their house. She went to the police, told them she’d been beaten (which the police could see from the bruises) and the next day she went with the police and collected her daughter.

Rowling fled to Scotland and moved in with her sister for a few weeks. She went on welfare as a single mother and was taking classes in hopes she could eventually get a job as a teacher at a local school. Meanwhile she finished her manuscript for the first Harry Potter book. It was rejected by 12 publishers but eventually one agreed to publish it in 1997. It wasn’t expected to be a hit. The first print run was just 500 copies most of which went to libraries. Rowling describes going to a local bookstore to by a basic reading book for her daughter and turning and seeing her book on the shelf. She said it was one of the best moments in her life.

As we all know the book began to take off, mostly by word of mouth between kids. And fairly soon Rowling was a celebrity. She bought a small house and said there were reporters camped outside. Some thought she was being snooty for declining interviews at the time but she was concerned her ex-husband would see her on the news. And in fact he did because at some point he arrived in Scotland and broke into her house.

All of that is contained in just the first episode of the podcast. Episode 2 is about the reactions to the Harry Potter books, both positive and negative. Future installments promise to discuss her views on women and trans issues. If you’re interested, the episodes are available here.