Unsworth’s New Book Slags
Award-winning author Emma Jane Unsworth has returned with Slags. This bold and emotional new novel explores fractured sisterhood, the power of memory, and the evolution of female identity from adolescence to middle age.
In her eagerly anticipated novel, Unsworth follows two estranged sisters on a reluctant road trip through Scotland’s windswept Highlands. Alternating between the raw honesty of a fourteen-year-old’s diary entries and the reflective voice of her forty-something narrator, Slags probes how memory, language, and identity change over time.
Unsworth first stumbled upon the novel’s seed when she unearthed a library of teenage journals during a recent visit to her parents’ home in Manchester. “Reading my fourteen-year-old self was a revelation,” she admits. “I sounded fearless.” This contrast between youthful certainty and adult self-doubt forms the backbone of Slags
At the novel’s centre are two sisters, once inseparable, now estranged. Forced together in a cramped camper van, traversing Scottish glens and heathered moors, they confront long-buried resentments and the unspoken expectations that fractured their bond. “Sisterhood is the ultimate laboratory for intense relationships,” Unsworth explains. “They know exactly how to hurt each other, but also how to heal.” This volatile dynamic drives the emotion throughout Slags, a novel as much about the bruising intimacy of sibling relationships as it is about the search for identity.
Half road trip, half coming-of-age story, Slags is also a meditation on the power of words. The title is a bold act of reclamation. “It was such an insult – especially growing up in the ’90s,” Unsworth said. “That word would haunt me. I wanted to reclaim it, to strip its power to wound and invite readers to think about the force of language.”
Previous Novels
Unsworth’s previous novels, Animals and Adults, also explored the emotional layers of female friendship, identity, and social pressure. “My friendships are the longest relationships of my life and the most complex, durable, and heartbreaking,” she said. “Some of my biggest heartbreaks haven’t been over romantic partners. They’ve been over friends.”
Readers of Adults will recognise Unsworth’s talent for interrogating how social media distorts identity. When asked how online cultures shape women’s self-image today, she expressed concern about the narrowing standards of beauty and success. “It’s often just about presenting quite a narrow band of what’s beautiful, what’s fun, what’s clever, what’s successful,” she noted. “There are still few ways for women to feel beautiful.”
Beyond the Books
Outside of her novels, Unsworth has been expanding her creative work in film and television. She is currently adapting Slags for the screen and developing a new show titled Cheats, which explores the fallout of a friendship between two women in their forties whose daughters form a surprising bond. “It’s about how the next generation can compel us to confront and perhaps repair past wounds,”.
Unsworth revealed that last year, she was diagnosed with autism and ADHD and how this has helped her understand her creative process. “I swing between craving noise and needing absolute silence,” she reflects. “Both feed different parents of my creativity”.
Chatting with the Brighton-based author, she revealed that Slags was a decade in the making. With her trademark blend of wit, emotional clarity, and insight into female relationships, Slags is a fierce and funny addition to Emma Jane Unsworth’s growing literary repertoire and a timely reminder that language, like relationships, is always ours to redefine.
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