Emma Donoghue Talks About Her New Novel, <em>The Pull of the Stars</em>
Editor’s Note: Read “The Blood Tax,” new fiction from Emma Donoghue.
“The Blood Tax” is taken from Emma Donoghue’s forthcoming novel, The Pull of the Stars (available on July 21). To mark the story’s publication in The Atlantic, Emma and Thomas Gebremedhin, a senior editor at the magazine, discussed the story over email. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Thomas Gebremedhin: “The Blood Tax” is taken from your forthcoming novel, The Pull, which is set during the 1918 Spanish-flu pandemic. You wrote the novel long before COVID-19 started to dominate global headlines, and the story has since taken on an unexpected congruity with our current moment. What has it been like for you to revisit the book these past few weeks? Were there any particular scenes that took on new meaning?
