Slammerkin
Slammerkin (London: Virago, 2000, reissued 2012; New York: Harcourt, 2000; Toronto: HarperCollins Canada, 2009). Inspired by a murder that took place in the Welsh Borders in 1763, Slammerkin, my third novel (and first historically inspired one), is about a prostitute obsessed with clothes. A surprise bestseller, it was a Main Selection of the Book of the Month Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club, a finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction, a Barnes and Noble Discover Selection, a Book Sense 76 Selection, and one of the Notable Books of 2001 chosen by Publishers Weekly and the New York Times.
In 2012 Virago re-issued Slammerkin as one of six beautifully designed Coming of Age Modern Classics, putting me in the fine company of Sarah Waters, Rumer Godden, Rosamond Lehmann, Maya Angelou and Miles Franklin.
A personal note: Slammerkin began as one of the stories for the collection I would go on to publish as The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, but I soon realized that it would take the length of a novel to figure out why this murder happened back in 1763. The work I was doing for my PhD on eighteenth-century fiction really helped, giving the novel a fiercely revisionist take on gender, class and race. Historical fiction was not yet trendy in the late 90s, and my agent and I both feared that this dark, Darwinist story would be impossible to sell (and it certainly was difficult). I credit the wonderful Lennie Goodings, publisher of Virago, for improving it in three vital ways: she made me put in ‘lots more London’, take the slave character far more seriously, and change the title from the doleful The Complaint of the Crows (what was I thinking?!) to ‘some delicious clothing term’: the one we found was ‘slammerkin’, which fortuitously means both a loose dress and a loose woman. The novel became an indy bestseller: to my surprise, modern American readers (in particular) were more than able to connect with the brooding resentments of a teenage street prostitute in eighteenth-century London. Looking for a model for the warm but frazzled murder victim, I picked my mother, never thinking she would recognize herself across more than two centuries in this Welsh Protestant dressmaker… but she did, ringing me up to ask (with great good humour), ‘I’m the one who gets it in the neck with the cleaver, amn’t I?’
To buy Slammerkin:
On audio (read by Charlotte Strevens): https://www.isis-publishing.co.uk/osb/itemdetails.cfm/ID/7138
US: http://hmhbooks.com/hmh/site/hmhbooks/bookRetail?isbn=9780156007474
Canada:
http://www.harpercollins.ca/books/Slammerkin-Emma-Donoghue/
Translations
Kokkine kordela (Athens: Alexandreia, 2004)
Lichtekooi (Amsterdam/Antwerpen: Atlas, 2001)
Forthcoming in Chinese (simple characters), German and Hungarian.
‘What a great read this book is: Think Forever Amber skewed with an elegant noir twist and informed by a high literary intelligence. … This absorbing, bawdy novel gives new meaning to the term costume drama. By all means, try it on for size.’ – Washington Post
‘Emma Donoghue’s heady, colorful romp of a novel [is] almost impossible to resist.’ – New York Times Book Review
‘Absorbing, moving and intelligent… her writing is suffused with sensuality and sharp emotion.’ – Times Literary Supplement
‘A rock-solid novel of class conflict and desire.’ – Now
‘Donoghue has made of an ‘obscure and brutal story’ a compelling novel, her best to date, and a brilliant historical variant on the ‘girl about town’ novels that currently fill the bookshops.’ – Financial Times
Bibliography
Maria Mulvany, ‘The Haunted Skin: Spectral Traces in Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin’, paper delivered at International Association for Studies in Irish Literatures (Leuven, 2011)
Emma Young, ‘Time & Space in the Works of Emma Donoghue,’ paper delivered at Time and Space in Contemporary Women’s Writing conference (University of Hull, 2011).
Marisol Morales Ladron, ‘The Representation of Motherhood in Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin,’ in Irish University Review (March 2009), http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+representation+of+motherhood+in+Emma+Donoghue's+Slammerkin.-a0204544278
Donna Potts, ‘“Wales is Where England Runs Out”: Celt/Saxon Dichotomy in Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin,’ Wales/Ireland Postgraduate Symposium (Cardiff University), 2009.
Shauna Goble, ‘A skin that had split, and been shed’: Female Identity and Sexuality in Emma Donoghue’s Slammerkin and Hood,’ paper delivered at ACIS South (2007).
Eibhear Walshe, ‘Emma Donoghue, b. 1969’, in Anthony Roche, ed. The UCD Aesthetic: Celebrating 150 Years of UCD Writers (Dublin: New Island, 2005), 274-84. Insightful analysis, especially of triangles in Slammerkin.
Linden Peach, The Contemporary Irish Novel: Critical Readings (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 12, 76-84.
Vince Passaro, ‘For Want of a Few Fine Things,' Elle, July 2001
Zofia Smardz, 'Satin Doll,' Washington Post, 17 June 2001
'Taking Readers Where They Can't Go on Holidays', Books Ireland, September 2000
Linda Richards, ‘Emma Donoghue’, www.januarymagazine.com/profiles/donoghue.html (November 2000)
Vicky Allan, 'Messy Business,' Scotland on Sunday, 6 August 2000
Eve Patten, 'Tart with an Exotic Flavour,' Irish Times, 29 July 2000
Fiona Shaw, 'The Sinful Price of a Dress Called Skin,' Financial Times, 22 July 2000
Alev Adil, 'Cullies, Strollers, Mollies and Pimps,' Times Literary Supplement, 21 July 2000
