Set in post-famine Ireland, “The Wonder” spins out the drama between Anna O’Donnell, a devout Catholic child who believes she is surviving on “manna from heaven,” and her nurse-turned-guard, Lib Wright, who has no use for religion. “The Wonder” fictionalizes the latter, though the plot is not as simple as any of the real-life dramas it is based on. Some were revealed as frauds, some gave up their fast, while others wasted away while family, friends, doctors and clergy watched. Now, Donoghue, 47, has written “ The Wonder,” a story based on “fasting girls” - a crop of pre-adolescent Victorians, some of them religiously motivated, who seemed to survive for months or years on no food and little water. It became a 2015 film for which Donoghue wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay. It told the story of Ma, a kidnapping victim shut away in a tiny shed with her young son. Then there’s “ Room,” her 2010 novel that was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. “ Hood” (1995) has a young woman’s accidental death at its heart “ Slammerkin” (2000) is based on a 1763 murder of a prostitute and “ Frog Music” (2014) is based on the unsolved 1867 murder of a woman who illegally hunted frogs and hung out in railroad saloons. (RNS) Emma Donoghue often finds the kernel of her critically acclaimed, best-selling novels in stories of dead women and girls.
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