How do you write about a theme you’ve never experienced yourself? How do you balance speaking on behalf of those not given a voice yet still not creating an environment where their voices are shut out? In our efforts to broadcast the stories of the people and circumstances unheard, can we ever do justice to them? I don’t think Kushner’s The Mars Room, a story about incarcerated women (and some men), aimed to deal with these themes directly but our book club was especially interested in these topics. So as we do, we dove head first and looked at The Mars Room through the social critique lens.

I’ll be the first to admit that The Mars Room isn’t my favorite book – it’s messy and the characters are not lovable. But perhaps the book never aimed to achieve those goals. Kushner tells the story of Romy Hall, a prisoner about to start her sentence after killing her stalker. Romy used to be a dancer at a strip club and was used to the underbelly of society. Her prison sentence was a wrench in the works only because she had a kid who she cared for dearly and was in the process of being put in the foster system. Kushner interweaves stories of secondary characters including Gordon Hauser, a teacher who works in the Prison Service and ends up falling for the women prisoners her teaches.

The storylines are slightly predictable, with characters entering slightly jaded, discovering some respite but eventually realizing that life is a harsh creature. Kushner herself shared that her goal was to provide a picture of the incarceration system and its effects on people involved – how it destroys more lives even when the ethics of the sentence are questionable. I can appreciate such a goal, but I did not feel compelled by the characters. I wondered if it was because there were too many moving parts and not enough development. Or was it because I just could not connect with the characters.

I think about other good prison narratives such as Oz or OITNB where I found myself connecting with characters even if I didn’t like them, understanding their worldviews. Kushner’s Mars Room does very little of that – the storytelling is arguably cold and distant, displaying Kushner’s lack of intimacy with the profile of people she’s writing about. That’s a disservice to the people who are actually involved in systems of incarceration who probably have stories that need to be told.

The book acts as a foil to how good empathy is conveyed in a story, in my opinion. Surprisingly, reviews online are positive for the piece so perhaps you would have a different opinion. Let me know if you do.

Here are my ratings:

Readability: 4/5

Intellectual Stimulation: 2/5

Perspective Shifting Capability: 2/5

Would I Recommend? – Nope.