Three and a Half Deaths
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An accident, a suicide, an act of criminal negligence . . . and a near-death experience. The short stories in Emma Donoghue's Three and a Half Deaths – set in France, the USA and Canada – bring together calamities from two centuries.
'What the Driver Saw' is inspired by a freak accident on Nice's Promenade des Anglais, the 1920s equivalent of Princess Diana's last ride through Paris.
'The Trap' takes us to New York, 1878, when a woman at the centre of a public scandal decides that she's finally had enough.
Any thinking about death must of course include its lingering effects on the living; 'Sissy' explores the guilt and culpability of a woman whose young sister died in the 1840s in London, Ontario.
Finally, 'Fall' is about an incident at Niagara Falls in 1901 when a middle-aged schoolteacher staked her whole future on an act so daring it could be called suicidal. A near-death, a sort of rebirth: the kind of moment that makes visible the discreet courage it takes to live a whole life.
Emma Donoghue
Born in Dublin and now living in Canada, EMMA DONOGHUE writes fiction as well as drama for stage and screen. Her novel Room was shortlisted for the Booker, Commonwealth and Orange Prizes and sold nearly three million copies in forty languages. Donoghue was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Room the film, starring Brie Larson. She also co-wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of her novel The Wonder, starring Florence Pugh, and adapted Room and The Pull of the Stars for the stage. Donoghue’s most recent novel, The Paris Express, was a finalist for the 2025 Giller Prize. Her other novels include Learned by Heart, Haven, Akin and Frog Music.
More by Emma Donoghue
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