Frog Music, by Emma Donoghue (2014)
It’s 1876 in San Francisco. The city is plagued by a small pox epidemic
and a heat wave. Prostitution is legal,
as is the farming out of unwanted babies.
Blanche Beunon is a French immigrant, burlesque
dancer and “soiled dove”. She lives with
her lover and his protégé. One day in
the middle of August, Jenny, riding a high-wheeled bicycle literally runs into
Blanche. Jenny has a mysterious
past. She has, however, been arrested
numerous times because of her habit of wearing pants and men’s clothing. It is illegal in Victorian San Francisco for
a woman to wear such clothing.
Blanche and Jenny form a curious
friendship. Within a month, however,
Jenny has been shot and killed. [This is
not a spoiler, as the murder occurs in the first few pages of the novel.] Blanche spends the next few days trying to
bring the murderer to justice.
The novel goes back and forth in time,
slowly peeling back the layers of Blanche’s life and her relationships with
those around her.
The novel is based on actual historical
events of the real-life murder of Jenny Bonnet who wore men’s clothing and
caught frogs for a living, and Blanche Beunon.
Read:
January 14, 2018
3.5 Stars
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