Astray, by Emma Donoghue

Herself an immigrant twice over (to England and then Canada), Irish-born Donoghue explains in an afterward to this collection of short pieces that all of the stories have something to do with having “strayed,” geographical, emotionally, or morally.  Each short piece also has an afterward which tells where the original idea behind the story came from.  All have some basis in fact – either a single sentence in an old newspaper, or a more completely reported incident.  The main characters are based on real people.  But it is the author’s imaginative retelling of what lay behind the dry or incomplete facts that make each vignette live.  Who knew that Charles Dickens befriended a woman forced into somewhat genteel prostitution and helped her, her young daughter, and the younger brother she was supporting immigrate to Canada to start new lives?  We actually don’t, until the afterward of “Onward.”   Or of the close relationship between Barnum’s “Jumbo the elephant” and his keeper?  Fascinating glimpses.  275 pp.