“Definitely an Author to Watch”:

Rosie Garland on the (Neo-)Victorian Freak

Abstract

This interview with Rosie Garland, conducted by Dr Lin Pettersson, gives insight into the author’s writing and her concern for issues regarding gender, normalcy and identity through a discussion of her acclaimed debut novel The Palace of Curiosities (2013). Garland speaks about the difficulties of being a woman writer and going from struggling to getting published, winning the Mslexia novel competition, and subsequently signing a two-book contract. She is a writer, singer and performer – labels that blend together in the prose of The Palace of Curiosities as the author combines the performativity of the neo-Victorian literary mode with the visual dynamics of Victorian popular entertainment in an exploration of gender issues, identity and deviance through the trope of the nineteenth-century freak show.