Emma Jane Unsworth's fizzy story of sisterly rivalry has shades of her TV collaborator Sharon Horgan
Slags combines the cheery nostalgia of Derry Girls with the rapid-fire humour of Fleabag
Sisterly rivalry has long been a rich literary seam to mine, and for good reason. Take two women in the fullness of their chaotic, complex glory, add in a dark backstory and the ongoing competition that often happens between women that are close. It's been done before, certainly, but Emma Jane Unsworth has taken this dynamic, swept out the clichés and added plenty of fizz and salt to the trope.
It's been five years since Unsworth published her third novel, Adults. It was, among other things, a brilliant and observant portrait of one woman and her social media presence. (A raw, yet highly readable memoir on postnatal depression, After The Storm, was published in 2022). In the years since Adults' came out, she has also turned her attention to screenwriting, co-writing the BBC comedy The Outlaws with Stephen Merchant in 2021. Two years later, she was the showrunner for Dreamland, Sharon Horgan's zippy Sky Atlantic comedy. The latter in particular appears to be a particularly fortuitous collaborator; when it comes to the sharp yet fun tone of their work, the two have much in common.
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