Oddity, muddiness: Emma Donoghue’s “Astray”

Posted on November 16, 2012 by doradueck

“I love the oddity of historical incidence, the ethical muddiness,” Emma Donoghue (of Room fame) has said, and it’s oddity and muddiness she digs into in her latest book, Astray, a collection of 14 stories set in places as various as London, the Yukon, and Louisiana, in years ranging from 1639 to 1967.

There’s a keeper’s persistent chatter to his elephant Jumbo in “Man and Boy,” and the voice of Nigger Brown as the slave conspires to murder his master and run off with his wife in “Last Supper at Brown’s.” There’s a series of letters to the New York Children’s Aid Society by the birth mother and adoptive father of Lily May with their competing claims upon the child (“an epistolary duet,” Donoghue calls it) in “The Gift.” In “Daddy’s Girl,” a young woman has just discovered, upon his death, that her father was actually female. Continue reading →

Riding the train

Posted on October 29, 2012 by doradueck

I recently spent six days away, in the Saskatoon, Saskatchewan area, speaking at a women’s retreat, and while there anyway, enjoying a visit with two of my sisters and their families, as well as launching my new book at Saskatoon’s McNally Robinsons. The retreat was the main thing, of course, some 45 in attendance from Mennonite Church Saskatchewan considering the theme “Called to Rest, Called to Renewal.” And such wonderful women they were, blessing me with their warmth, participation, and conversation.

But I’m finding that the piece of Away that seems to hook the most curiosity when I’m asked about it — and answer — is the fact that I took the train to and from. It’s understandable, I suppose; I hadn’t been on a Canadian train myself for at least 25 years. So, today I’m blogging about riding the train. Continue reading →

What it’s like to launch

Posted on October 5, 2012 by doradueck

It’s a good thing I promised to say something about the launch of my book, because I’ve slipped back into regular mode, meaning it feels somewhat distant already, so why go on about it? And we’re having wintery weather at the moment – yes, that’s snow caught in the grass – when just days ago, pre- and launch days, that is, it was gorgeous autumn. As if in the meantime a season has come and gone.

It’s good for me, though, to remember and also explain things to myself, and in addition, Shirley Hershey Showalter, in a FB post, said, “I hope you’ll describe what it’s like to launch,” so here I am, on about it. (She’s very close to completing a memoir manuscript for which she already has a contract, so her launch lies soon ahead of her.)

For me, then, and Shirley, and anyone else interested, this is about the launch of my collection of short fiction, What You Get at Home, last Tuesday. Continue reading →