The Mars Room

by Rachel Kushner

[ibeforem]

I've wrestled with my feelings about this book, and I think I've fallen solidly on the side of "meh". I struggled to get through it, but kept going because I was interested in the prison drama of it all. I can appreciate the literary quality of the writing, but the story structure left something to be desired. Sometimes things are linear, sometimes we're jumping around from person to person at different places in time, and I often forgot who I was reading about and had to check back to see.

The bulk of the story is about Romy, an exotic dancer who kills a man who is stalking her and is sent to jail for it for life. She's strangely dispassionate about it, except when she's thinking about the son she has left behind and will never see again. But even then, he eventually ends up to be more of a bargaining chip, a way for her to get attention. And like Romy's story, I liked the stories of many of the other characters that are woven in, even though I found everyone (including Romy) to be a stereotypical "type". My biggest problem was that nothing tied together in the end.

And speaking of the end, I hated it. I literally turned the "page" on my kindle expecting more and found nothing. I guess I'm not a fan of an ambiguous ending. I think it really added to my annoyance that I finished the book and immediately though "that's it?"

There are many, many stellar reviews of this book online, and it was long-listed for a Man Booker prize, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing something big here. I guess you'll have to read it yourself to decide.