Staff Pick
Emma Donoghue's meticulously researched story of 1870s San Francisco is a perfectly realized murder mystery, but with a definite literary bent. Prostitutes, frog catchers, madams, gamblers, and "baby farms" all play an integral part here. What is so rewarding about this story are the characters; Donoghue created them from real-life people, based on sketchy references and slim information. Frog-catcher Jenny Bonnet and prostitute Blanche Beunon are two women you want to know. Trust me! Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From the author of the worldwide bestseller
Room: "Her greatest achievement yet...Emma Donoghue shows more than range with
Frog Music — she shows genius." —Darin Strauss, author of
Half a Life Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.
The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice — if he doesn't track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.
In thrilling, cinematic style, Frog Music digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.
Review
"Donoghue proves herself endlessly inventive....[She] nails both the period details and the atmosphere-think sweltering heat waves, dumping grounds for unwanted babies, and smallpox epidemics. This is the kind of book that will keep you up at night and make you smarter." Cosmopolitan
Review
"A riveting literary thriller....Donoghue brilliantly conjures the chaos of a boomtown in the grip of both a heat wave and a smallpox epidemic; her cast of colorful lowlifes includes the freeloading Arthur and his sycophantic best friend, Ernest. But it's Blanche and Jenny who hold our attention....Frog Music begins with a mystery: Who killed Jenny? But it enthralls with two other questions: Who was Jenny? Who will Blanche become?" O, The Oprah Magazine
Review
"Frog Music...[brings] to steamy life the unresolved so-called San Miguel Mystery....Donoghue front-loads the drama....She captures San Francisco in all its melting-pot, fishy-smelling glory, and weaves in authentic details about smallpox outbreaks, race riots, and orphanages. Jenny Bonnet is an incendiary character pulled directly from the history books....Her extraordinary life gives Donoghue's novel contemporary resonance." Elle
Review
"More fine work from one of popular fiction's most talented practitioners....Donoghue's vivid rendering of Gilded Age San Francisco is notable for her atmospheric use of popular songs and slang in Blanche's native French, but the book's emotional punch comes from its portrait of a woman growing into self-respect as she takes responsibility for the infant life she's created." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Donoghue's first literary crime novel is a departure from her bestselling Room, but it's just as dark and just as gripping as the latter....Aside from the obvious whodunit factor, the book is filled with period song lyrics and other historic details, expertly researched and flushed out....Donoghue's signature talent for setting tone and mood elevates the book from common cliffhanger to a true chef d'oeuvre." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Donoghue flawlessly combines literary eloquence and vigorous plotting in her first full-fledged mystery, a work as original and multifaceted as its young murder victim....An engrossing and suspenseful tale about moral growth, unlikely friendship, and breaking free from the past." Booklist (Starred Review)
Review
"Donoghue's evocative language invades the senses....Readers won't quickly forget this rollicking, fast-paced novel, which is based on a true story and displays fine bits of humor with underlying themes of female autonomy and the right to own one's sexual identity." Library Journal (Starred Review)
Review
"Research and invention together mark Frog Music with the ring of truth and salvage a fascinating story from the ether of history." A.V. Club
Review
"Like Room...Donoghue here displays an uncanny knack for telling an off-putting story in such a way that you can't stop reading it, that you fall a little bit in love with the characters and the moment in time she's creating." Seattle Times
Review
"It's in the tentative moments of love between Blanche and P'tit that Frog Music is at its best-heartfelt, affecting, and real. Donoghue is so gifted at depicting the fraught blessings of motherhood." Chicago Tribune
Review
"A vivid narrative equipped with love, lust, and violence, questionable morals, period folk tunes, an eclectic band of characters, and a quest for justice." Bustle
Review
"Though Donoghue poses the book as a mystery — who killed Jenny Bonnet? — it's equally a celebration of love despite hardships galore, and the rising call of motherhood against near impossible odds." Alan Cheuse, NPR
Review
"A dazzling historical crime drama." San Francisco Chronicle
Review
"Vividly rendered....A page-turner, full of suspense; fans of Room will recognize the dark, gripping tension Donoghue creates so masterfully. But the novel goes far beyond the usual thriller in its nuanced characterizations: Jenny and Blanche are sculpted into living, breathing, feeling individuals, and even minor characters pulse with life." Minneapolis Star Tribune
Review
"A captivating exploration of female friendship, music, cultural clashes, San Francisco's history, childcare, and the sex trade in the United States." Lambda Literary
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Room, a young French burlesque dancer living in San Francisco is ready to risk anything in order to solve her friend's murder--but only if the killer doesn't get her first.
Summer of 1876: San Francisco is in the fierce grip of a record-breaking heat wave and a smallpox epidemic. Through the window of a railroad saloon, a young woman named Jenny Bonnet is shot dead.
The survivor, her friend Blanche Beunon, is a French burlesque dancer. Over the next three days, she will risk everything to bring Jenny's murderer to justice--if he doesn't track her down first. The story Blanche struggles to piece together is one of free-love bohemians, desperate paupers, and arrogant millionaires; of jealous men, icy women, and damaged children. It's the secret life of Jenny herself, a notorious character who breaks the law every morning by getting dressed: a charmer as slippery as the frogs she hunts.
In thrilling, cinematic style, Frog Music digs up a long-forgotten, never-solved crime. Full of songs that migrated across the world, Emma Donoghue's lyrical tale of love and bloodshed among lowlifes captures the pulse of a boomtown like no other.
"Her greatest achievement yet . . . Emma Donoghue shows more than range with Frog Music--she shows genius." --Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life.
About the Author
Born in Dublin in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish emigrant twice over: she spent eight years in Cambridge doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature before moving to London, Ontario, where she lives with her partner and their two children. She also migrates between genres, writing literary history, biography, stage and radio plays as well as fairy tales and short stories. She is best known for her novels, which range from the historical (Slammerkin, Life Mask, Landing, The Sealed Letter) to the contemporary (Stir-Fry, Hood, Landing). Her international bestseller Room was a New York Times Best Book of 2010 and was a finalist for the Man Booker, Commonwealth, and Orange Prizes. For more information, visit www.emmadonoghue.com.