The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

The Mars Room

by Rachel Kushner

A view. Elements coming into focus. Side roads, trees, vehicles. 

Could we call it a landscape? The illusion of freedom as the scenery keeps changing. It’s all happening behind a window. From a closed place.

As Romy Hall reveals her story and the struggles of prison life, she allows us to have access to her mind, eventually to her heart. We are evolving in the penitentiary realm but one place remains chainfree – free to move and explore. A place where life keeps on going. We call it the inner life. Free of attachment. Strong as a tiger, ready to emerge from behind the leaves.

Words and phrases are sometimes raw and sharp, leaving no room for procrastination. After a beat or two a decision is made, deeds done and a new direction is taken. Prison life is sharp as a knife. Perception of time ever changing – the day to day backdrop for these inhabitants whose destiny seems pretty perspectiveless.

And yet, as I was going through the pages, I couldn’t stop believing that Romy would find her way out. That she would make it through. That’s probably my optimistic nature getting in the way. The more I got to know her, the more I felt she was aware of her own biases, not that she could do something about it but at least she was owning her story. Being regretful for things that she once was eager to act upon. And her love for her son. All of tem constant milestones on a journey to hope. To solution. To redemption. To start fresh and new.

I would sometimes get shaken, even uncomfortable with the roughness of some paragraphs. No elegance. No delicacy. No good manners. Just the pure raw naked truth. A world that I have probably avoided my entire life. Even though I read before about what prison life is, or could be, I had always shield away from that raw component. From this environment where violence and shame are landmarks.

How do words, only words put together, convey the energy and the dynamic of this place? The brutality of each day spent behind closed doors? Is this the power of storytelling? Do we have to experience it ourselves to let it shine on the page?

And then the love for a child. Probably the most powerful love of all kinds. The one that makes us do crazy things. The one that gives all the courage and grit to climb mountains and search for gold. The one that involves flesh and blood. The one that changes us forever.

I found it hard knowing that Romy wouldn’t have a chance to see her son Jackson. That no matter how hard she tried, the law was still the law and a mother in jail is potentially not a mother anymore. Half of a mother? It was devastating.

If I could, I would have shaken Gordon Hauser’s mind, the GED prison teacher, to do something for her. To listen carefully to his own feelings and make a move. 

Romy is resilient. She knows she can count on herself. At least she got that. And it helps to make the final move, whether successful or not. That doesn’t even count. What matters is to try. To give it a chance. And for that, she let her determination be her guide. 

There is a lesson here. An act of courage unfolding as the ending of the book is looming.

After I finished the last page, an intense feeling stuck with me. I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling. I just knew that this book had left an unforgettable imprint on me. And it would take time for me to understand it. Actually, it wasn’t really about finding the essence or the emotion related to that imprint but more to acknowledge once again the power of books, the power of storytelling to make us grow. To bring us closer to ourselves and by doing so closer to humanity. I would even dare to say closer to God.

Suffering is a doorway to compassion.