I had heard the term ‘rape culture’ before then but it was in that moment that I truly understood what it meant. A reporter for CNN commented that it was “incredibly difficult” to “watch what happened as these two young men that had such promising futures, star football players, very good students, literally watched as they believed their lives fell apart.” What was most striking to me about this case was the reaction of the local community, and how the story was talked about in the media. A young girl at a party, incapacitated by alcohol, was publicly assaulted by members of the local football team while photographs and videos were taken and uploaded online. The novel was inspired by a number of real-life incidents, but the story that had the greatest impact upon me was the Steubenville case in the US. What inspired you to write the novel, and did you ever envisage it as a stage play? It doesn’t just impact the victim, it affects their family and friends, as well as the community at large. The novel –as the play – is divided into two halves, before the rape and afterwards, and explores the corrosive ripple effect of sexual violence. It’s only when photos begin to circulate on social media that Emma learns she’s been the victim of a brutal sexual assault the night before. At a party one night, she gets high and drunk and when she regains consciousness the next morning, she’s been thrown on the front porch of her family home with no recollection of how she got there.

She’s beautiful, popular loved and feared in equal measures by her friends. The novel tells the story of Emma O’Donovan, a young woman growing up in a small town in west Cork. Asking For It, which has been adapted from your novel is coming to Birmingham Rep, what can you tell us about it?Īsking For It was first published in 2015.

Asking For It by Louise O'Neill