Synopses & Reviews
Seventeen and sure of nothing, Maria has left her parents' small-town grocery for university life in Dublin. She finds a home, but it is four stories higher than she is used to, and her flatmates, Ruth and Jael, are older and more fascinating than she expected.
Rushing to tutorials by day, cleaning offices by night, Maria tries to get a grip on this new life. Urged on by her determinedly fun-loving friend Yvonne, she tries to summon up enthusiasm for finding a boyfriend, but her attention is elsewhere: what is she meant to be learning in Dublin, what should she look like, who should she be? And how much of a hold can the conventions of home and Catholicism keep on her, in a city of crumbling tenements and protest demos about condoms?
Her first tentative friendships failing to satisfy, Maria is drawn back to the flat, to Ruth's warmth and Jael's unsettling humor. But something Maria glimpses by accident blows her mind open, and she is forced to question everything she thought she knew about sexuality. Helplessly voyeuristic, she is drawn further and further into her flatmates' lives.
A poignant, funny, and sharply insightful coming-of-age story, Stir-Fry is a lesbian novel that explores the conundrum of desire arising in the midst of friendship and probes feminist ideas of sisterhood and nonpossessiveness.
Review
"In her sweet first novel, Donoghue...writes clearly but never plainly about Maria, a young woman from the country who comes to Dublin to begin college....Donoghue deftly separates her novel from the usual coming-of-age fare with gentle language and a winningly intelligent protagonist." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
EMMA DONOGHUE is also the author of Slammerkin, Hood, and Kissing the Witch. Born in Dublin, the youngest of eight children, she now lives in London, Ontario, Canada. Stir-fry was her first novel.