“Definitely an Author to Watch”: Rosie Garland on the (Neo-)Victorian Freak

Abstract

This article includes an interview with Rosie Garland, conducted by Dr Lin Pettersson, which 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.