The Mars Room

Do not think for one minute that when you start Rachel Kushner’s THE MARS ROOM you will be able to put it down. This novel is other worldly amusing, with characters so good they charm and repulse you, and a storyline that is fraught with doom from the first page.To say that Kushner is a master storyteller would be the understatement of 2018. To tell you that her characters, each with a life story so intriguing, how they walk and talk to the point that you forget you’re reading because it feels like they are in front of you. Well, I just told you. She wrote it and you ought to read it.Romy, the protagonist, is on a prison bus with her soon to be prison mates, headed to a new location. The ride and these people alone are an indication of how bleak things are going to get as she is in for one brutal two life sentences with no parole situation.There are codes, rules between inmates, and ways to keep yourself alive within prison. Romy can play this game. She was doing it long before she was behind bars. But by no means is it easy. The struggle is real.A literary light is kindled for Romy when she meets a prison teacher who takes note of her interest and feeds her curiosity with great books. This is just one of many layers to the story.There is an overriding sense of sadness that I felt for each of these women. Even though they are fictional, and each ended up incarcerated of their own doing, some for unthinkable crimes, I could not help but think of their circumstances and how their endgame was inevitable. One takeaway for me is that people are no different whether they have freedom or not. Alliances are formed, stereotypes are prevalent, the weak do not survive, bigotry and hatred abound, a keen sense of intellect is learned quickly inside, and the ignorant are loud.Ooh wee, THE MARS ROOM is one fine, entertaining, and knock-out book. I can’t get enough of Kushner’s writing. What’s next.

Rachel Kushner is a real talent, and the writing is at times terrific in this sympathetic portrayal of a life without hope. However, as in the case of My Absolute Darling, I wonder how degraded human experience can enrich the world. Rather, how explicit the rendition of that experience needs to be. Or how many subcultures are worthy of such attention. Perhaps to my detriment, I see a difference between Arundhati Roy’s Ministry of Utmost Happiness and The Mars Room, not because the subject matter is so different — the travails of outsiders whom others see as subhuman — but because of the behaviors of the protagonists and the descriptions of life itself. Bone and gristle and bodily fluids are not necessarily additive, and this novel had too much of them per unit of insight. Balzac and Dickens described the demimonde, and I, for one, would not have asked them for more detail.

Although it was interesting to read the story of women inmates that isn't OITNB. But ... The book was poorly executed. The writing and imagery and characters were interesting, but their stories were never really completely fleshed out or brought to some kind of denouement. They just ended. In the case of Hauser, unexpectedly. And then the ending! The book didn't wrap story lines up; it just stopped -- a cop out, if you ask me. It was almost like the author was writing along and she or her editor decided the book was long enough and she just needed to quit.

Puts you in a place you don't want to stay. You have to though because the characters suck you in and you have to learn about them. Rachel Kushner is a force.

They say books take a person away from the world they think is reality; Kushner's book sets that premise reeling. The Mars Room is more real than most "real" conversations ya hear at a coffee house. A reader can step into The Mars Room without the slightest suspension of disbelief, still compelled to turn the next page.

This was a fabulous read. I loved it because it offered a realistic portrayal of a girl's life on the wrong side of the tracks but could be anyone with bad luck. I lived in the area that is mentioned so could relate. Fans of Orange is the New Black will LOVE this. My only complaint was the way it ended. There needed to be MORE. Maybe a sequel?

If you wonder how people living on the edge look at life, this book offers a believable, tragic, yet darkly humorous perspective. We meet some bruised but hopeful people who keep trying for a livable existence. Of particular merit are the descriptions of life inside low-level womens’ prisons: much less civilized than what’s portrayed in OITNB. There’s valid male perspective, also. And several questions are offered, about the inevitability of life, once choices are made. This all may sound moralistic and dry...it’s NOT! The characters presented will make you want to mother them- or wish you could have, back when they were kids. Plus: we’re given a crash course in the really seamy part of San Francisco!

This is a dark book without much joy to be found. But it's real, the writing is excellent and it grabs you until the end. I couldn't have imagined the lives described here...but these lives exist. We just choose not to think of them.