The Mars Room: A Novel
TIME’S #1 FICTION TITLE OF THE YEAR • NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018
FINALIST for the MAN BOOKER PRIZE and the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
LONGLISTED for the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
An instant New York Times bestseller from two-time National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room earned tweets from Margaret Atwood—“gritty, empathic, finely rendered, no sugar toppings, and a lot of punches, none of them pulled”—and from Stephen King—“The Mars Room is the real deal, jarring, horrible, compassionate, funny.”
It’s 2003 and Romy Hall, named after a German actress, is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: her young son, Jackson, and the San Francisco of her youth. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the deadpan absurdities of institutional living, portrayed with great humor and precision.
Stunning and unsentimental, The Mars Room is “wholly authentic…profound…luminous” (The Wall Street Journal), “one of those books that enrage you even as they break your heart” (The New York Times Book Review, cover review)—a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America. It is audacious and tragic, propulsive and yet beautifully refined and “affirms Rachel Kushner as one of our best novelists” (Entertainment Weekly).
FINALIST for the MAN BOOKER PRIZE and the NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD
LONGLISTED for the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL
An instant New York Times bestseller from two-time National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner, The Mars Room earned tweets from Margaret Atwood—“gritty, empathic, finely rendered, no sugar toppings, and a lot of punches, none of them pulled”—and from Stephen King—“The Mars Room is the real deal, jarring, horrible, compassionate, funny.”
It’s 2003 and Romy Hall, named after a German actress, is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: her young son, Jackson, and the San Francisco of her youth. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the deadpan absurdities of institutional living, portrayed with great humor and precision.
Stunning and unsentimental, The Mars Room is “wholly authentic…profound…luminous” (The Wall Street Journal), “one of those books that enrage you even as they break your heart” (The New York Times Book Review, cover review)—a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America. It is audacious and tragic, propulsive and yet beautifully refined and “affirms Rachel Kushner as one of our best novelists” (Entertainment Weekly).
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The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
336 pages
What’s it about?
Romy Hall is serving two consecutive life sentences in Stanville women’s Correctional Facility for murder. Before being locked up Romy was a stripper at The Mars Room. A seedy strip club in San Francisco-“If you’d showered you had a competitive edge at the Mars Room. If your tattoos weren’t misspelled you were hot property. If you weren’t five or six months pregnant, you were the it-girl in the club that night.” Romy (and many of the characters in this novel) never stand a chance at leading healthy, productive lives. This is their story.
What did it make me think about?
The last novel I read by Rachel Kushner was "The Flamethrowers" and it was so much work to get through that book. This novel is just flat out depressing- but really quick and easy to read. Rachel Kushner is an incredibly talented writer but this novel often felt like she was force feeding you her viewpoints.
Should I read it?
This novel has issues- but it is still worth reading. The author certainly did her homework on women’s prisons and it was enlightening and disturbing. It gives you a certain viewpoint about our justice system, our prison system, and how hopeless some women feel. My biggest complaint was that the main character of Romy seemed like a cardboard cutout. Some people never have a chance.....
Quote-
“You would have been safe and dry and asleep, at home with your mother and your father who cared about you and had rules, curfews, expectations. Everything for you would have been different but if you were me, you would have done what I did. You would have gone, hopeful and stupid.”
The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner
336 pages
What’s it about?
Romy Hall is serving two consecutive life sentences in Stanville women’s Correctional Facility for murder. Before being locked up Romy was a stripper at The Mars Room. A seedy strip club in San Francisco-“If you’d showered you had a competitive edge at the Mars Room. If your tattoos weren’t misspelled you were hot property. If you weren’t five or six months pregnant, you were the it-girl in the club that night.” Romy (and many of the characters in this novel) never stand a chance at leading healthy, productive lives. This is their story.
What did it make me think about?
The last novel I read by Rachel Kushner was "The Flamethrowers" and it was so much work to get through that book. This novel is just flat out depressing- but really quick and easy to read. Rachel Kushner is an incredibly talented writer but this novel often felt like she was force feeding you her viewpoints.
Should I read it?
This novel has issues- but it is still worth reading. The author certainly did her homework on women’s prisons and it was enlightening and disturbing. It gives you a certain viewpoint about our justice system, our prison system, and how hopeless some women feel. My biggest complaint was that the main character of Romy seemed like a cardboard cutout. Some people never have a chance.....
Quote-
“You would have been safe and dry and asleep, at home with your mother and your father who cared about you and had rules, curfews, expectations. Everything for you would have been different but if you were me, you would have done what I did. You would have gone, hopeful and stupid.”
I was provided an advance e-galley of this novel from the publisher, Scribner, through Netgalley.
3.5 stars. The Mars Room kept my attention. It's well-written, a fascinating look inside the mind of inmates, as well as what life in prison might be like for those inmates. Kushner does a good job of drumming up sympathy for her prisoners, for the hopelessness of their situations and the lack of resources available to them. I've read reviews by others who didn't like her style of jumping from one character to another, but I thought it served the story well--building the tension and giving an alternate view. And while most of the book made me want to lock my doors and never leave my house again, it also reminded me that humans are fragile and easily broken.
#popsugarreadingchallenge (advance prompt #9)
3.5 stars. The Mars Room kept my attention. It's well-written, a fascinating look inside the mind of inmates, as well as what life in prison might be like for those inmates. Kushner does a good job of drumming up sympathy for her prisoners, for the hopelessness of their situations and the lack of resources available to them. I've read reviews by others who didn't like her style of jumping from one character to another, but I thought it served the story well--building the tension and giving an alternate view. And while most of the book made me want to lock my doors and never leave my house again, it also reminded me that humans are fragile and easily broken.
#popsugarreadingchallenge (advance prompt #9)
There was so much hype surrounding this book, so I was pumped to read it but it really fell super flat for me. The disjointed timeline, seemingly random character switching/perspectives switches, were all jarring from chapter to chapter. I think this had great potential, but instead, I felt like I was sitting in a car going 50mph on a highway because it was a shit car, and once I got to the destination I wasn't impressed and wanted to turn right back around and go home. I needed more to keep me going and it just wasn't there.
Also, the seemingly random font change for that one character, when there were not distinctive font changes for any of the others, incredibly confusing.
Also, the seemingly random font change for that one character, when there were not distinctive font changes for any of the others, incredibly confusing.
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