Frog Music by Emma Donoghue

 

Frog Music by Emma Donoghue
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book back in June of 2015, but it is STILL one that sticks with me. I found it that gripping.

Frog Music is not a thriller; it’s mostly a historical fiction novel with true crime and what they call “women’s fiction.” The year is 1876, and sex worker Blanche Beunon has just met Jenny Bonnet, a woman who dresses as a man, which is against the law (per the description of her in the book; I’m not sure if Jenny would’ve considered herself transgender, so I am using the pronouns used for Jenny in the book, which are she/her/hers) and works as a frog-catcher.

1876’s San Francisco, the setting of the novel and the real-life crime, is ablaze with chicken pox outbreaks, crime, violence, and racial tensions between white and Chinese folks, enflamed by the disparity of wealth and poverty that was especially prevalent in San Francisco then. It is vivid, atmospheric, and felt real to me.

Blanche is a burlesque dancer newly immigrated from France, and also a prostitute. Her lover, Arthur Deneve and his friend, Ernest Girard, live primarily off of Blanche’s generosity. There are quite a few sex scenes of all types in this book, so if that will make you feel some kind of way you don’t want to feel, this is not for you.

The book opens with Jenny’s murder, then quickly rewinds to the night Jenny and Blanche met. Who shot Jenny, and why, is one of the story’s mysteries.

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Spoilers Ahead! Read at your own risk

There’s a lot here, which is why I remember this book so well. There’s the history, the lives that Blanche and Jenny led (quite different from each other), baby farms, and so much more that evoked many different emotions for me. One of the most memorable parts for me was Blanche’s ambivalence towards motherhood. After her son, P’tit, is born, Arthur convinces Blanche to send P’tit to a baby farm, which she assumes will care for him as she continues her work in the sex industry. Upon Jenny’s urging, Blanche visits the baby farm only to find that he is quite sickly, and she brings him home and stops working, much to Arthur and Ernest’s dismay. They attempt to force her back into sex work, somewhat as a means to get money, but also because Arthur seems to crave control of Blanche. Blanche flees her home, leaving P’tit behind, and stays with Jenny. Their relationship turns sexual. 

It is at this point in which Jenny is shot; John Jr, Jenny’s boarder’s son, is the shooter and he had indeed intended to kill Jenny for “attacking” Blanche, but he was coerced by Arthur. In the book, Blanche is able to bring Jenny’s attackers to justice and begin a happy life as a dance instructor with P’tit along for the ride. In real life, Donoghue writes in the epilogue, Blanche died six months later from throat cancer.