The Waiting Room - An Interview With Emma Donoghue

Before Emma Donoghue’s novel Room had even hit the bookshelves it had been placed on the long list for the Man Booker Prize. By September, it was on the shortlist and, unsurprisingly, went on to become the number one bestseller in Ireland and in several other countries. It's no surprise that it was picked up by a studio and has now been adapted beautifully into an Oscar nominated movie, also called Room, starring Brie Larson. I had the pleasure of interviewing the Canadian-based Dublin native for Verbal literary magazine back in 2010 when this astonishing and heart-wrenching novel was published.

Photograph by Punch Photographic

The response to Emma Donoghue's seventh novel Room was a surprise even to the author herself. The novel, inspired by an element of the infamous Fritzl case in Austria that drew her attention, has been both praised and criticised; some saying it was exploiting a tremendously upsetting incident that happened in reality, while some – including the panel of judges for the Man Booker Shortlist – lauding the work for the interesting insight and angle it gives to such a horrifying experience. Either way, it has become the talk of book land and is hotly-tipped to win one of the most salubrious literary prizes in the world.

When asked about whether she had expected the reaction that Room went on to receive, O’Donoghue is frank: “Not at all! I knew this book would have a wide appeal as it's about such dramatic and universal themes, but I never imagined it would have such success, and certainly the thought of the Booker never crossed my mind.”

Although Donoghue has been residing in Canada since 1998, the daughter of literary critic Denis Donoghue grew up in Dublin and, after studying English and French at UCD, she flew the coop for Cambridge; where she went on to study for a PhD. She now lives in London, Ontario with her partner and two children and has been a Canadian citizen since 2004. She feels, in some ways, these significant moves, from Dublin to Cambridge to Canada, were invaluable for her as a writer and broadened her mind in terms of content: “Spending eight years in England began that process and moving to Canada continued it.  Writers should all emigrate every ten years!”

It was the significant change in her life of having children that changed her perspective somewhat and opened her eyes to the idea of Room, which allowed her to draw certain parallels to the characters of the mother and son in the novel. “The idea fell into my mind because I had children of four and one at the time. And I drew specifically on my son for Jack's voice and mindset. Ma is... the very best of me, I suppose, but I don't manage to be like that for more than five minutes at a time!”

Donoghue has been writing professionally since she was 23 and has gone on to receive wide acclaim for her novels, short stories, radio and theatre plays and young adult fiction. In 2000, her novel Slammerkin became an unexpected hit; earning her several awards and a nomination for the Irish Times Book of the Year. In her novels Donoghue finds tiny elements of truth from history and creates her own unique fiction from them.

Slammerkin was based on a murder from 1763. Another successful novel, The Sealed Letter, was based on a scandalous divorce case set in Britain in 1864. The project she is working on now is “about 1870s San Francisco “. Although all of her novels have garnered wide acclaim, none have been received as greatly as Room. Donoghue’s ability to find something so particular and make a story from it has come to the fore with her latest novel. “Room is my seventh novel. I've found a different voice for each one: the voice that story called for. The difference is that Room is reaching a wider audience.”

From writing novels in such a variety of genres - from historical fiction to thriller - the family bond is by far the biggest concentration in Room because of Donoghue’s role of mother in her own life: “It's changed my sense of self, firstly: I'm not an individual anymore, I'm part of a web. I suppose that's given me new things to write about, though it hasn't transformed my style or methods.” The idea that emerged for Donoghue after hearing about the Fritzl case was “The notion that such a child emerging into a world of which he was ignorant would be an entirely fresh perspective.”

Felix Fritzl, the child of the captured Elizabeth Fritzl and her father Joseph Fritzl was the same age as Donoghue’s narrator Jack and close in age to her son when the case emerged. In detail, the Fritzl case and others like it are traumatic; even for those reading about them and imagining such a thing could happen; especially with the Fritzl case where a father hid his daughter for twenty-four years and she had seven children by him. To write about the topic Donoghue had to research many of these cases but, when asked whether mentally engaging with her subject matter was difficult to stomach, she replies “Mentally tackling Jack's situation was easy compared to wading through the many horrifying real cases of children raised wrongly.”

When faced with the character of the captor, given the name “Old Nick” by Jack, Donoghue is very sparing in her description. The character of “Old Nick” creates an ominous, foreboding feeling; despite his lack of presence. When asked whether it was tempting at any point to make him more of a prominent character, Donoghue is firm in her reply, given that this character represents such a villain in reality. “No, I didn't want to let him set the terms of the book or move into its centre: I deliberately boxed him in, confined him in a small part of Room. I wanted him to be memorably banal.”

On a final note, when asked why she believes Room has achieved the success and attention it has garnered over the past few months, Donoghue believes that “It takes parent-child love as seriously as it deserves”. Therein lies its strength. Although it deals with a topic that some might call sensationalist, it is the story of the relationship at the heart of the novel that really matters.

Originally published in Verbal in 2010.