Exiled in the scraps of history
By Brooke Allen |
November 4, 2012, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
EMMA Donoghue, born in Ireland in 1969, is twice an emigrant, having moved first to England and then to Canada to raise a family. Sometimes, she writes, when the plane begins its descent above London, Ontario, her adopted city, "I find myself troubled by confusion, which gives way to a sense of arbitrariness. Why am I landing here, out of all possible spots on the turning globe? ... If your ethical compass is formed by the place you grow up, which way will its needle swing when you're far from home?"
Donoghue's new story collection, "Astray," explores the theme of emigration through the use of historical documents and personal letters Donoghue has unearthed over the last decade and more. The type of historical fiction in which an author takes actual people (conveniently dead!) and puts thoughts into their heads and words into their mouths can seem presumptuous, especially when the author is less intelligent and interesting than the person whose thoughts he or she is trying to imagine. This is not the case with Donoghue: her work (as she proved most recently in her hugely successful novel, "Room") is sensitive and intuitive, and her narrative voice moves fearlessly between centuries and between genders.
The characters in "Astray" are traveling "to, within, and occasionally from the United States and Canada," and with few exceptions were "real people who left traces in the historical record." Most are obscure; a few better known to history and have even left biographical material behind, as did the narrator of her first tale: Matthew Scott, ostensible author of the ghostwritten "Autobiography of Matthew Scott, Jumbo's Keeper" (1885). Donoghue sets this story, "Man and Boy," at the moment London Zoo had just sold its most popular attraction, Jumbo "the Beloved Pachydermic Behemoth," to PT Barnum; Scott (the only man who could handle the beast) was given the task of luring him into his crate for the trans-Atlantic crossing.
Scott's loving monologue to Jumbo is a perfect example of Donoghue's facility with dialogue and character traits; Matthew's distinctive turn of phrase - "We don't mind the piddling tiddlers of this world, do we, boy? We just avert our gaze" - combines absurdity and nobility with a sure touch. As true, yet quite different, is the language of an abused slave planning escape from a Texas farm in 1864 in "Last Supper at Brown's;" this brief, suspenseful story was inspired by a clipping from The Tucson Star telling of a slave who killed his master and "throughout all his wanderings ... he was accompanied by his slain master's wife." As the author points out in her afterword, many of the characters here stray not only across geographical boundaries but those of law, sex or race.
Donoghue reveals them all, in their places of exile, with gentle yet devastating truth.
Donoghue's new story collection, "Astray," explores the theme of emigration through the use of historical documents and personal letters Donoghue has unearthed over the last decade and more. The type of historical fiction in which an author takes actual people (conveniently dead!) and puts thoughts into their heads and words into their mouths can seem presumptuous, especially when the author is less intelligent and interesting than the person whose thoughts he or she is trying to imagine. This is not the case with Donoghue: her work (as she proved most recently in her hugely successful novel, "Room") is sensitive and intuitive, and her narrative voice moves fearlessly between centuries and between genders.
The characters in "Astray" are traveling "to, within, and occasionally from the United States and Canada," and with few exceptions were "real people who left traces in the historical record." Most are obscure; a few better known to history and have even left biographical material behind, as did the narrator of her first tale: Matthew Scott, ostensible author of the ghostwritten "Autobiography of Matthew Scott, Jumbo's Keeper" (1885). Donoghue sets this story, "Man and Boy," at the moment London Zoo had just sold its most popular attraction, Jumbo "the Beloved Pachydermic Behemoth," to PT Barnum; Scott (the only man who could handle the beast) was given the task of luring him into his crate for the trans-Atlantic crossing.
Scott's loving monologue to Jumbo is a perfect example of Donoghue's facility with dialogue and character traits; Matthew's distinctive turn of phrase - "We don't mind the piddling tiddlers of this world, do we, boy? We just avert our gaze" - combines absurdity and nobility with a sure touch. As true, yet quite different, is the language of an abused slave planning escape from a Texas farm in 1864 in "Last Supper at Brown's;" this brief, suspenseful story was inspired by a clipping from The Tucson Star telling of a slave who killed his master and "throughout all his wanderings ... he was accompanied by his slain master's wife." As the author points out in her afterword, many of the characters here stray not only across geographical boundaries but those of law, sex or race.
Donoghue reveals them all, in their places of exile, with gentle yet devastating truth.
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