Tag Archives: music hall

#BookReview ‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by @CarolBirch #historical

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What to say about this unusual novel by Carol Birch? First, I loved part of it. Second, I didn’t realize until I got to the end that it is loosely-based on a true story. If you loved Birch’s Jamrach’s Menagerie, try this. Carol BirchA young veiled woman travels by train from Mexico to New Orleans. She is disfigured but we don’t know the exact details until quite a way into the book: this is a novel which rewards patient reading. Julia Pastrana becomes a music hall attraction – singing, dancing, playing a guitar – while undergoing examinations by doctors who proclaim her part-human. Her successive managers make the most of the doctors’ pronouncements. This is a linear narrative, Julia’s life story, driven by her search for unconditional love.
The real Julia Pastrana had large ears and nose, irregular teeth and straight black hair all over her body. Despite her obvious intelligence – she spoke three languages – the myths continued until her death. It is an indictment of the way people not considered ‘normal’ were treated in the 19th century, seeing them as attractions rather than people with feelings.
The modern-day storyline of Rose, a young woman who collects unwanted items, was, for me, an unnecessary distraction from the main story. The obvious connection between the two women is their struggle to fit into society, though Rose is more of an emotional drifter.

Click the title for a brief taster of Carol Birch’s JAMRACH’S MENAGERIE.

If you like this, try:-
‘An Appetite for Violets’ by Martine Bailey
‘The Miniaturist’ by Jessie Burton
‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview ORPHANS OF THE CARNIVAL by @CarolBirch via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-29G

#BookReview ‘Frog Music’ by Emma Donoghue #historical

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I came to Frog Music knowing nothing about it other than it was written by Emma Donoghue who wrote Room. So it was something of a surprise to discover Frog Music is a historical crime story set in San Francisco in 1876 and loosely based on true events. Emma DonoghueI loved it. Every page pulses with the colour of the time. In the summer of 1876, San Francisco is a vibrant and bustling city living through an intense heatwave and smallpox epidemic. Donoghue starts her story with the murder of Jenny Bonnet, frog-catcher, who is shot through an open window. Her friend Blanche Beunon, a burlesque dancer, must find the murderer and avoid being killed herself, whilst tracking down her own missing baby. The pace is fast and San Francisco is portrayed as a third character; switching from the bawdy House of Mirrors where Blanche dances, to smelly noisy Chinatown where she lives.
The notion of chance is explored. What if the two women had never met. One day, Blanche is knocked down in the street by a young man on a bicycle. “Black anterlish handbars, that’s all she has time to glimpse before the gigantic spokes are swallowing her skirts.” Except it is not a young man, it is a young woman wearing trousers. Jenny continues to dress this way despite being pursued by the law and attracting disapproval wherever she goes. To the end, Jenny remains a bit of a mystery to Blanche and to the reader, “…As if Jenny has a prickly city self who gets into slanging matches in bars, and a country self who’s at rest, somehow.”
Donoghue tells the story in two parallel threads which alternate. First is the story of Jenny’s death at San Miguel Station, a dusty settlement outside the city, and Blanche’s struggle to identify the murderer. The second narrative tells how the two women met and the events which occurr before they arrive at the rural saloon where the murder takes place. Blanche is not an amateur detective, she is simply a woman who sees her friend murdered. She is determined to find the murderer, before the murderer kills her.
Blanche moves in a world on the edge of society, just a day’s work from hunger or homelessness. The line between hunger and honesty, deceit or crime and a full stomach, is one Blanche becomes familiar with. She wants a better life, as a woman she is ambitious and saves her money, but her life choices make her vulnerable and her decisions come back to haunt her.
This is a very assured creation of a colourful period in history, peppered with French influence, dialect and songs.

Read my reviews of these other Donoghue novels:-
AKIN
THE PULL OF THE STARS
THE WONDER

Read the first paragraph of ROOM.

If you like this, try:-
‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx
‘The Last Runaway’ by Tracy Chevalier
‘Summertime’ by Vanessa Lafaye

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview FROG MUSIC by Emma Donoghue http://wp.me/p5gEM4-TH via @SandraDanby