The second in a series of posts in which we ask writers about the cultural influences on their work. I often draw on fact to spin my fiction. But in the case of “Frog Music,” which is based on an 1876 ...

In 1870s San Francisco, in the midst of a debilitating smallpox epidemic and a rancid heat wave, a cross-dressing, frog-hunting, bicycling itinerant singer named Jenny Bonnet is murdered. In Emma ...

While fact-checking Current contributor Leigh Baldwin’s review of Frog Music, I happened upon author Emma Donoghue’s blog post for The New Yorker titled Inspiration Information: “Frog Music.” While ...

Emma Donoghue’s latest novel has many facets, all of them fascinating. “Frog Music” is a detailed slice of historical drama, set in the festering boomtown of San Francisco in 1876. Like her ...

Emma Donoghue’s tales are always unexpected. “Room,” which became a phenomenal best seller, was narrated by a child held captive from birth in a soundproof cell. Her newest, “Frog Music,” is a ...

This real-life unsolved murder is the basis of Emma Donoghue’s new novel, “Frog Music.” (Little, Brown and Co.). The story is told through Blanche Beunon, a burlesque dancer who is in the same room ...

“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them,” wrote James Baldwin in “Notes of a Native Son.” Much of novelist Emma Donoghue’s literary career has involved the liberation of ...

San Francisco in the summer of the 1876, between the Gold Rush and the smallpox epidemic, is the setting for Emma Donoghue's boisterous new novel, Frog Music. There's real frog music in these pages, ...