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The Mars Room

The Mars Room

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Summary

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER


A fearless and heartbreaking novel about love, friendship and incarceration, from the author of the internationally acclaimed The Flamethrowers.

‘Astounding… this year’s must-read’ ANNE ENRIGHT

Romy Hall is starting two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility. Her crime? The killing of her stalker.

Inside awaits a world where women must hustle and fight for the bare essentials. Outside: the San Francisco of her youth. The Mars Room strip club where she was once a dancer. Her seven-year-old son, Jackson.

As Romy forms friendships over liquor brewed in socks and stories shared through sewage pipes her future seems to unfurl in one long, unwavering line – until news from beyond the prison bars forces Romy to try and outrun her destiny.

* Pre-order Rachel Kushner’s new novel, Creation Lake, now *

‘Breathtaking’ VOGUE

‘One of our most outstanding modern writers’ STYLIST

‘Gritty, empathetic, finely rendered’ MARGARET ATWOOD (on Twitter)

Reviews

  • It is an unforgettable novel, and leaves the reader in no doubt that Kushner is one of America’s greatest living authors.
    Daily Telegraph

About the author

Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner is the author of The Hard Crowd, her acclaimed essay collection, and the internationally bestselling novels The Mars Room, The Flamethrowers, and Telex from Cuba, as well as a book of short stories, The Strange Case of Rachel K. She has won the Prix Médicis and been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books are translated into twenty-seven languages.
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