The Mars Room: A Novel Paperback – May 7, 2019

This is not an easy book to read, but it is brilliant. Kushner's characters are vividly portrayed and her writing is often tensely exquisite. In some reviews there are complaints about a somewhat awkward structure, which I can understand, but overall, she has accomplished something quite impressive, orchestrating the stories of a half dozen people so you end up with a deep understanding of the forces and circumstances that have shaped these characters. Much of this is unpleasantly real. But important. If you're simply looking for entertainment, this is not for you. It is thought-provoking, disturbing and yet often quite nuanced. It is not a page turner in the classical sense, at all, until the final pages. In fact, I had to put it aside several times because the darkness was getting to me. But what else would you expect of a book that brings you inside the lives of women serving life (or greater) in prison. Realistic, yet compassionate and respectful. Kushner's command of language is keen.

It was really well written and keeps it interesting by jumping to different characters. I wish it had a different ending. I ended up rooting for the main character and was hoping for some miracle for her. It was raw and honest. I appreciate the author's POV.

Kushner's writing style is immersive, drawing readers into the harsh realities of incarceration and the struggles faced by those trapped within its walls. The novel's exploration of themes such as survival, justice, and the human spirit provokes thought and reflection long after the last page is turned.However, despite its compelling narrative and vivid characters, "The Mars Room" can at times feel disjointed and meandering. The nonlinear structure may be disorienting for some readers, making it challenging to fully connect with the story's progression. Additionally, while the novel sheds light on important social issues such as poverty, addiction, and the failures of the justice system, it occasionally lacks the depth needed to fully explore these complex topics.Overall, "The Mars Room" is a thought-provoking read that offers a unique perspective on life behind bars. While it may not be without its flaws, Kushner's powerful storytelling and vivid imagery make it a worthwhile addition to any reader's bookshelf, especially for those interested in delving into the darker corners of society.

The eponymous Mars Room is a strip club in San Francisco, where the protagonist, Romy, age 29, used to work. She liked it, because she made good money and could buy drugs, get high, and the money helped support her son, Jackson (who is now seven). Romy won’t see him anymore, though, because she is serving two life sentences plus six years. This is mostly a narrative about Romy’s life in prison, and her thoughts, and the claustrophobic existence she lives and breathes now, and her granular memories of life before. She got a raw deal, although she did live a life of crimes and misdemeanors. “I was assigned a public defender, We were all hopeful things would go differently. They did not go differently. They went this way.”The novel flows with gallows humor—I would almost call it gulag humor. This is no Orange is the New Black. The women don’t have white teeth and shining hair. They don’t have hope beyond the walls, either. But they do form a family, of sorts, with each other.Romy is an intelligent woman, never had a break. But didn’t much look for one, either. She threw the opportunities away and aimed low, but you’ll empathize with her. She’s so human, and doesn’t deserve to be treated like an animal, just because she lived an animal existence before, and didn’t really spend meaningful time doing meaningful activities. She did have a boyfriend and a hideous stalker. She unpacks her life in bits and pieces, but it all fills in within the cracks and scars.Romy muses on San Francisco, the city that outsiders think is lovely and exciting and fun. For Romy, it is not. She grew up here with her mother, and is not sentimental. “The city to us was clammy fingers of fog working their way into our clothes, always those clammy fingers… The city was wet feet and soggy cigarettes at a rainy kegger in the Grove.” Her mother took care of Jackson when Romy went to jail, her mother the chain-smoking German that named Romy after a German actress who told a bank robber on television that she liked him. A lot. Well, you get the picture. Romy expands that picture in her contracted world.This isn’t a face-paced novel, but the pages turn with a grainy 8 mm-like visual and a steady, sinuous rhythm. The plot is just enough to have a bit of an arc, but mostly it is a portrait of different kinds of grim restriction—imposed by the self or the system. There’s a number of very colorful and sinister people, and then there’s the femaile prisoners who are lifers caught up and damned by the prison system.Then there’s Gordon, a paid English teacher that works in the prison and who forms a constricted connection with Romy. They share a love of literature and loneliness. He gave up a more trapped academic life with attachments to live in a remote, isolated cabin, where he reads Thoreau and observes the natural world.Gordon gave up a girlfriend who he was glad to sever from his life, because women with need incited his escape instincts. “You had to mask your own ambivalence and pretend to be in love one hundred percent of the time, and he’d rather swim in a lake of hellfire.” But the remote life doesn’t necessarily expand his mind and calm his soul. Instead, things just become more skewed and he becomes more confined in his thoughts.Kushner has written three very different novels. She’s that rare author that also has more than one writing style, but many of her characters are fighting oppressed or reduced circumstances. She also finds these intriguing niches of humanity—a cabaret dancer, an anarchist, a French agitator, a woman biker, avant garde artists, poseurs, and others who dazzle the pages. And her main protagonists, like Kushner herself, are acute observers. In THE MARS ROOM, I felt as if I were seeing with Romy’s sharp and weary eyes. Provocative, brutal, and unsentimental, the story bites but also finds a few sweet spots in the slammer.

This one is a gut wrencher. The main character goes to jail for basically standing her ground against a truly dangerous individual. But she's not the kind of person who gets away with that. Strong, memorable characters and a biting critique of the corruption in the criminal justice system.I have always liked books with multiple POV characters, but the characters and plot don't quite hang together as well as they could. But they do pretty frickin well. This is definitely worth a read.

Really impressive book. It allows the reader enough emotional detachment to keep on reading despite the horrific and disturbing content. The main protagonist is not entirely likeable, but wanting to like her is probably facile. She is a survivor, but despite intelligence and good looks she hasn't been able to survive the life she's been dealt. The effect of a punitive system that so grossly exceeds any moral imperative to punish wrong doers is shocking. It shows the darker side of a society that prides itself on having no empathy. Just call them losers and look the other way; call yourself Christian while you're at it.

"You hear a woman cry and it's real. It's not a courtroom, where they ask all the pertinent and wrong questions, the niggling repeated demands for details, to sort contradiction and establish intent. The quiet of the cell is where the real question lingers in the mind of a woman. The one true question, impossible to answer. The why did you. The how. Not the practical how, the other one. How could you have done such a thing. How could you."This is basically the book version of Orange is the New Black but a lot darker and grittier. This is a book all about the life at a women's prison. Our protagonist, Romy Hall has been sentenced to life twice. The reader is unaware of the crime that has been committed until it is revealed later in the book. She is a difficult character to empathetically connect with, not only because she is a criminal but because the author purposely keeps her at an ambiguous distance from the reader. This is an effective tool because throughout the book, you never know if you should be rooting for Romy or not. Even after having read this, I am still uncertain how I feel about her. The reader is forced to examine their personal biases through the viewpoint of a character whose morality is in a permanent gray space.Interspersed with Romy's flashbacks and thoughts, we also get perspectives from the guards, the prison teacher and the other inmates. This provides a perspective on the prison system as a whole.There is a thread of desensitization that runs throughout the people at the prison. I thought this was portrayed in a very realistic way. There is a scene where a prisoner gives birth to a baby and no one knows how to react to an event that "on the outside" would be a happy one."A birth should be joyous. This was a lonely birth. The mother was in the hands of the state, and so was the baby, and they each only had that one tie, to bureaucracy. The correctional officers seemed to think it was funny to see a baby in receiving. There aren't supposed to any babies. The baby was contraband."I'd recommend this to anyone who is looking for a book that is a slow burner with not much in terms of plot development but rather provides an unique snapshot of a life we may not be familiar with.

Lento, perdí en interés en continuar leyéndolo

Rachel Kushner é, sem dúvida uma das maiores escritoras norte-americanas da atualidade. Ela é tão boa que está no mesmo patamar de, digamos, uma Joan Didion, uma Joyce Carol Oates, ou uma Urusula K. LeGuin. Seus romances são comentários precisos sobre momentos históricos do passado que reverberam no presente – seja a respeito da Revolução Cubana (Tele from Cuba), ou da relação entre revolução e arte nos anos de 1970 na Itália (The flamethrowers). Em THE MARS ROOM, ela escreve um zeitroman, ou seja, um romance sobre o presente histórico em que a autora vive.O cenário central é uma prisão feminina para onde a protagonista, Romy Hall, é encarcerada depois de condenada a duas prisões perpétuas. Mas o que levou a moça de 29 anos a cometer um crime? O livro transita entre o presente e o passado – onde, eventualmente, trabalha no Mars Room, o mais notório e pior bar de striptease de San Francisco – e explora a descida da personagem ao inferno, e sua vida nele. Romy tem um filho pequeno, que ficou com sua mãe, e é sua fonte constante de preocupação e único motivo pelo qual gostaria de sair da penitenciária.O romance, em sua maior parte, é narrado pelo ponto de vista de Romy, com eventuais capítulos pela perspectiva de Gordon Hauser, que se torna professor na penitenciária. É ele quem fornece livros à protagonista - Charles Bukowski e Denis Johnson, mas as detentas gostam mesmo é de um romance de Danielle Steel que passa numa prisão feminina.A condição da mulher, na sociedade contemporânea, é uma questão central aqui, e Kushner a investiga com vigor, ao mesmo tempo que compõe um romance vigoroso e melancólico. Considerada uma das herdeiras de Don DeLillo (ele é citado na lista de agradecimentos), a autora tem uma prosa precisa, na qual nada sobra. Sua composição da personagem não busca uma empatia rápida e gratuita, é preciso que ela nos faça entrar nos pensamentos, emoções e sentimentos de Romy, e aí tudo faz sentido.O título, é claro, se refere ao bar, onde Romy diz acreditar ser “o lugar onde se podia fazer qualquer coisa que quisesse”. Ela descobre que, no entanto, as coisas não são assim, e sua prisão foi injusta, ao matar o homem que ameaçava e assediava a ela e ao seu filho. Mas sendo mulher e pobre, ela precisa pagar um preço bem alto. O resultado é um romance contundente – e, pode não ser uma leitura agradável (mas, paradoxalmente, há o prazer de o ler), mas é marcante.

Rachel Kushner ist für mich seit Flamthrowers die eine große (weibliche) Stimme der amerikanischen Literatur. Ein Mega-Talent.