BOOK REVIEWS
Courtesy of Beaverdale Books
Review by Owana McLester-Greenfield
‘Room’
By Emma Donoghue
Little, Brown and Company
09/13/10
$24.99
336 pp
“Room,” which has been nominated for the Man Booker Prize, is a dazzling piece of work and a large part of the author’s achievement lies in her creation of Jack, the 5-year-old narrator of the novel. For his entire life, Jack (along with his mother) has been locked in an 11-foot by 11-foot, soundproofed, lead-reinforced room. For Jack, the room is a complete world. It’s a home in which each object is named — bed, rug, rocker, watch — and loved. Whatever Jack can see and touch is real, but all else is known as “TV.”
Because of Ma’s inventiveness, Jack’s days are a satisfying routine of education and activity. Even though the room provides structure and security, Jack enjoys almost perfect happiness.
For his mother, though, the room is complete horror — a cell in which Old Nick, an abductor and rapist, has imprisoned her for seven years. Enduring continual abuse and unpredictable tortures, Ma protects Jack and tries, impossibly, to raise him as a normal child. Fear of abandonment by their suddenly jobless captor compels Ma’s process of “unlying,” telling Jack the truth about their situation and planning their escape.
Author Emma Donoghue does much more than examine the consequences of an unspeakable crime in “Room.” Heartbreaking and exhilarating by turns, the novel explores the subjective definitions of home and happiness, as well as the courage required to adapt and prevail. Furthermore, this haunting work illuminates the extraordinary sacrifices parents and children make for each other in the name of love. CV
