The premise of “Frog Music” is wild enough, and yet Donoghue pushes it over the top with explicit sex scenes, then bogs it down with daily minutiae that does little to enhance the story or its characters – or make us care for them much.Įven the central whodunnit question doesn’t garner much suspense and is ultimately resolved without much satisfaction. What “Frog Music” lacks, however, is the gripping storytelling that made Donoghue’s previous novel “Room” – about a mother and son held captive – such a beautifully poignant read. Along the way, Donoghue masterfully transports readers to an era of dung-covered cobbled roads, unspeakably cruel baby farms, deep suspicion of Chinese immigrants and unruly saloons. The novel goes back and forth between the shell-shocked, mystery-solving Blanche and her earlier, erotic-dancing, carefree self.
The story is told through Blanche Beunon, a burlesque dancer who is in the same room when her friend Jenny Bonnet is killed.
This real-life unsolved murder is the basis of Emma Donoghue’s new novel, “Frog Music.” (Little, Brown and Co.).
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