Record Number |
783217 |
ISBN |
9781910702680 (paperback) |
Author |
Kushner, Rachel author. |
Title |
The Mars room / Rachel Kushner. |
Publisher/Date |
London : Jonathan Cape, 2018. |
©2018 |
Pagination etc. |
340 pages ; 24 cm. |
Summary Note |
Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences, plus six years, at Stanville Womens Correctional Facility. Outside is the world from which she has been permanently severed: the San Francisco of her youth, changed almost beyond recognition. The Mars Room strip club where she once gave lap dances for a living. And her seven-year-old son, Jackson, now in the care of Romys estranged mother. Inside is a new reality to adapt to: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive. The relentlessly deadpan absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner details with humour and precision. Daily acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike. Allegiances formed over liquor brewed in socks, and stories shared through sewage pipes. Romy sees the future stretch out ahead of her in a long, unwavering line until news from outside brings a ferocious urgency to her existence, challenging her to escape her own destiny and culminating in a climax of almost unbearable intensity. |
Subject |
Women prisoners -- Fiction |
Children of prisoners -- Fiction |
Reformatories for women -- Fiction |
Female offenders -- Fiction |
Mothers and sons -- Fiction |
Interpersonal relations -- Fiction |
San Francisco (Calif.) -- Fiction |
Psychological fiction. |
Social problem fiction. |
Shelf Location |
F KUSH |