Book Review: The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

RACHEL SOO THOW - 31 AUG 2021

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“Magic Mountain was left, across the freeway. Right was a men’s county correctional facility. Our bus turned right. The world had split into good and bad, bound together. Amusement park and county jail.”

As my first Kushner novel, this did not disappoint. Romy Hall is our lady of the hour - as a single mother about to begin two consecutive life sentences for killing her stalker, Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility becomes the club dressing room much like the strip club where Romy once worked – The Mars Room. Now, you’re probably thinking, is this just a supporting novel written in the same way as the delights of Orange Is the New Black? Slightly, yes. Prison rules 101: Mind your own business and never tell anyone your real name. Kushner’s ability to delve into the details is incredible and no doubt this comes down to her diligent research skills and time spent in prisons to illustrate life on the inside – “You can wrap things tightly enough in plastic that no water seeps in. We send ice cream sandwiches from canteen through the toilets, wrapped in Kotex as insulation, then plastic wrap… Women smuggled heroin, tobacco, and cell phones from visiting inside their vaginas and rectums. Betty was smuggling plastic stemware.”

Kushner successfully gives the supporting cast of the prison a certain warmth and humour with a concise look into the unflinching portrayal of what it means to be poor and female in America. Drug addicts, sex workers, murderers and women on death row - the bleakness of this prison lifestyle exudes a certain silence, irritation and disapproval but there lies an element of hope. Longing. Longing for freedom.

“I witnessed doom. It was around me. But at the time, I thought the bad luck of other people reaffirmed that I was doing okay.”

We are also exposed to the third person narratives of two men in the novel - the dirty cop relishing his wish for revenge upon Betty LaFrance also in Stanville (a badass leg model for Hanes Her Way pantyhose - "She was a deluded woman sentenced to die") and dear sweet Gordon Hauser (both myself and Rai wanted to see more of Gordon throughout the novel and yay, we got it!); a disappointed academic hired to teach literature in the prison suffering from a slight dose of romanticizing his previous interactions with pupils. The focus isn’t however on these men, but these small cutaways add a wealth of substance worth mentioning – Kushner’s ability to shed some light on the downtrodden, the blunted and the worthless is admirable. Through the barbed wire, Kushner succeeds in bringing those centre stage who society has deemed invisible - she makes no attempt to draw illusory admirations to her characters but rather allows us to confide in their hidden truths and aspirations.

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