Monday, April 4, 2011

"Room" by Emma Donoghue 2010 / 336p.


Imagine what life would be like if all you had ever experienced was within the confines of an 11x11 room...Spookily reminiscent of the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping horror story, "Room" is a novel that explores a child's perspective on life and the world around him, both before and after he has lived solely with his mother inside a garden shed "apartment" for the first five years of his life. This book is gripping and mind-bending, a strong story that captures your heart and mind from the get-go.


Written from five-year-old Jack's perspective, Donoghue spends the the first part of the book establishing the surprising normalcy of Jack's world in captivity. He was born in Room, the result of Ma's daily raping by her kidnapper, and has never been outside of its walls. Jack's wordview is miniscule and warped, yet he has never known anything different and has adapted and thrived to the best of his ability. Ma, although depressed to the point of complete catatonia on certain days, has managed to provide Jack with a somewhat consistent eating, bathing, cleaning, playing, watching tv, and sleeping schedule on most days. They keep track of time via a digital watch and have a wide repetoire of games, songs, and tv shows that entertain them on a daily basis. Ma has managed to convince Jack that only the stuff inside Room is real and that the images he sees on tv are in outer space and unreal. Their creepy captor, Old Nick, visits Ma on a nightly basis, bringing Jack and Ma the bare necessities to sustain their lives with the expectation of intercourse, which she dutifully performs while Jack remains in the confines of Wardrobe. Ma has managed to keep Old Nick from seeing or interacting with Jack, having convinced him that she'll do whatever he wants as long as he leaves Jack alone.


When Old Nick decides to withhold food and electricity from Room for a number of days in an effort to teach Ma a lesson about the amount of control he has over their lives, she begins to panic and comes to the conclusion that they must escape Room. After much coaxing and "unlying" to Jack about what lies beyond the door of Room, Ma convinces him to carry out a risky escape. After a terrifying scene in which Jack manages to plays dead, jumps out of a moving vehicle, and nearly gets swiped back up by Old Nick, Jack succeeds in escaping and Ma is freed from Room.


The rest of the novel is devoted to establishing Jack and Ma's new normal, a life that includes other people, the outside, and freedom. Although plagued by post-traumatic stress, Ma and Jack slowly begin their journey of recovery. With lots of messy details, humor, scary and happy surprises, they find their footing in the wide world. Donoghue uses extraordinary insight in her character development of Jack. You feel like you know him - he makes you laugh with his personification of objects and his naive, yet wise, observations on adults, society, and life in general. He is one of the strongest characters I have ever encountered in a novel. Although the other characters in the novel are less developed and hazy, I believe this is purposeful because to give them more shape would not be true to how Jack would view them. Because the book is written from his perspective, it wouldn't be fair to Jack's character to give the other characters more substance because five-year-olds don't see others as complicated and three dimensional.


This is the kind of book that has the power to enlighten. It opens your eyes to what we see and do in daily life without even thinking about it. Jack is an unforgettable character who will leave an indelible mark on your spirit.

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