Author Emma Donoghue’s latest book is a historical fiction based on the true story of a murdered 19th century cross-dressing frog catcher. She talks to Divya Kaushik about her in-depth research and the film adaptation of her bestseller Room
While speaking at the lesbian lives Conference in Brighton in 2011, Irish-born author Emma Donoghue revealed that her next novel would be a historical fiction based on the true story of a murdered 19th century cross-dressing frog catcher. After intense research, the much-awaited novel, Frog Music (published by Pan Macmillan India), is out and is already making news. Her historical novel embraces some peculiar period details such as baby farms, a smallpox epidemic and the cross-dressing habits. Excerpts of an interview:
You do a lot of research for your fictional works, how did you prepare to create the setting of San Francisco in 1876 for your latest novel, Frog MusicIJ
I researched this novel in a range of libraries in Canada and the US, but also on the Internet, using databases of 19th century American newspaper, census returns, ships’ passengers lists, birth, death and marriage records. I also drew on a wealth of photographs of old San Francisco to capture the streetscape, that was lost in the earthquake and fire of 1906, and the costumes of burlesque dancers. I usually get the idea for my books many years before I get the chance to write them. It took me almost three years to write this book.
As Frog Music is based on true events, shed light on them and what were your major source of research for this bookIJ
The murder of 27-year-old frog-catcher Jenny Bonnet in San Francisco in 1876 has never really been solved; years later police blamed it on a dead Canadian, which seems too convenient to me! I used almost 60 newspaper articles about Jenny’s life and death to come up with my own version of what may have happened.
What was the biggest challenge in bringing out Frog MusicIJ
It’s my first crime novel. I’ve written stories with deaths or even murders in them before but this was the first novel in which I accepted that particular bargain with the reader, that I would offer them a mystery to solve with me.
Do you think real stories and accounts make for a better fiction than tales based on fantasies and imaginationsIJ WhyIJ
Not many of my favourite writers of fiction (whether set now or in the past) make it all up. But for some reason I have a craving for that little pebble of the real. It adds to the pleasure of my writing process to have facts to struggle with, to springboard from.
Are your personal experiences a part of your writingsIJ
There’s some of me in all my books. In both Room and Frog Music I drew on my own memories of times when motherhood seems an impossible task.
You’ve written numerous books of fiction, short stories, non-fiction history and stage, radio and screen plays. Which one is close to your heartIJ
I am very fond of my little-known second novel Hood, perhaps because being based on my memories of adolescence at a convent school it is extremely autobiographical.
You have explored motherhood in various ways in your writings. Tell us more about it and why it is always an important part of your worksIJ
It barely registers as a subject in the nine books I conceived before I had kids. In Room (written when our children were five and one) I suddenly found a story that would put parenthood in a spotlight, as it were — showing the high drama that is everyday intimacy between an adult and a child. And that theme is continuing to dominate my work now.
What kind of fiction did you read as a child and how does it influence you as a writerIJ
All sorts but especially fairy tales — and they show up in every book I write. During Frog Music I realised that folk music has much the same quality of being timeless but also capable of expressing different things as it changes from generation to generation.
Your bestseller Room is now being adapted into a film. How involved are you in the moviemaking processIJ
I am very much involved with the process. I am the screenwriter and an executive producer and loving the collaboration with the director, lenny Abrahamson, who plans to film it later this year.
Tell us about your inspiration as a writer.
Moment-by-moment observation of the world, coupled with obsessive daydreaming about the more extreme what-ifs that occur to me.
What are you working on nextIJ
A children’s book, my first — it’s a very daunting task!
Some Indian fiction writers that you read and likedIJ
Jhumpa lahiri, Aravind Adiga and Rohinton Mistry.