Beyond the Room to a Dublin hospital amidst a pandemic: Author Emma Donoghue on her writing journey

Irish-Canadian author Emma Donoghue set the literary world on fire with her 2010 novel Room.

Told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is held captive in a small room along with his mother for years, Room created a world and language of its own. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, longlisted for the Orange Prize, won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers' Prize regional prize, and was made into a critically acclaimed movie.

But, not content with resting on her laurels, the playwright, literary historian, and screenwriter has written a new book - The Pull of the Stars, a gripping story set in the midst of a flu pandemic.

Emma was a part of the Tata Literature Live! Mumbai LitFest discussions that were broadcast live due to the pandemic.

In an email interaction with YSWeekender, Emma talks about her novels, her writing journey, and her plans for the future.

A pandemic to remember

Emma’s latest book is set amidst a flu pandemic in a Dublin hospital in 1918 but is an uncanny reminder of the situation we are in today. When asked how she got the idea, she says, “An article in The Economist magazine in September 2018, about the centenary of the 1918 Great Flu, gave me the idea for the book.”

The book begins with a close-up look at Ireland in an era when it was ravaged by war and disease. The story revolves around Nurse Julia Power, who works at a hospital in the city centre where expectant mothers who have come down with the terrible new flu are quarantined together.

Dr Kathleen Lynn, a rebel on the run from the police, and Bridie Sweeney, a young volunteer helper, are also present. The novel portrays how the three women impact and change each other’s lives. It is a classic tale of hope and survival.

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Going back to the Room

Speaking about her award-winning novel, Emma says, “The Fritzl case in Austria (where a woman was locked up in a basement by her rapist father for more than 20 years) gave me the idea, but only because I was prepared for it by having two small children. Really, Room is a fable of parenthood.”

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One of her later books, Wonder, also set in Ireland, is a fascinating story about an English nurse, Lib Wright, who is summoned to a tiny village to observe a phenomenon that some people are claiming as a miracle. She learns about a girl who has been surviving for months without food. The girl has become a tourist attraction and soon a journalist also arrives to cover the story.

Both the books play out in enclosed spaces and when asked about the challenges of writing chamber dramas, Emma says, “I suppose the risk is that the reader will dislike feeling trapped with the characters, but in my experience, the advantages of focusing a novel on one confined space (such as the three-bed maternity/quarantine ward in The Pull of the Stars) are far more obvious as there is intense bonding or antagonism between characters, and mounting tension.”

As for the success of her novel Room, she says, “Writing an international bestseller was quite a shock to me.”

By hook or by book

Emma has also written for children. Her first children’s book, The Lotterys Plus One, is about nine-year-old Sumac Lottery with a very large, unruly family of four parents, children both adopted and biological, and a number of pets. One of their grandfathers, suffering from dementia, comes to live with them and changes their lives forever.

“A friend suggested I write about families with two mothers, such as hers or mine, to portray them as normal, but I found I was more interested in writing about a four-parent family that would be delightfully not-normal in a variety of ways,” she says.

Her writing style and favourite books

As a writer, Emma has her own writing style. “I am a big planner and very responsible about deadlines, but of course there is always room for spontaneous changes to plots or characters.”

One of her favourite authors is Roddy Doyle and she loves his new novel Love. “It is a wonderfully tender and compassionate story about the feelings that go with middle age, and the need to allow your children to outgrow you.”

Among Indian authors, she says she “loves the epic sweep of some novels by Indian-born writers such as Rohinton Mistry in A Fine Balance."

What’s in the future? Emma says she has several novels on the go along with a number of film/TV projects. “I am collaborating with a composer on a musical too,” Emma says.