u003cbu003eu003ciu003eTIMEu003c/iu003e’S #1 FICTION TITLE OF THE YEAR • u003ciu003eNEW YORK TIMESu003c/iu003e NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018u003c/bu003eu003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbu003eFINALIST for the MAN BOOKER PRIZE and u003c/bu003etu003cbu003ehe NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDu003c/bu003eu003cbru003e u003cbru003eu003cbu003eLONGLISTED for the ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDALu003c/bu003eu003cbru003e u003cbru003e u003cbu003eAn instant u003ciu003eNew York Times u003c/iu003ebestseller from two-time National Book Award finalist Rachel Kushner, u003ciu003eThe Mars Roomu003c/iu003e earned tweets from Margaret Atwood—“gritty, empathic, finely rendered, no sugar toppings, and a lot of punches, none of them pulled”—and from Stephen King—“u003ciu003eThe Mars Roomu003c/iu003e is the real deal, jarring, horrible, compassionate, funny.”u003c/bu003eu003cbru003eu003cbru003eIt’s 2003 and Romy Hall, named after a German actress, is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility, deep in California’s Central Valley. Outside is the world from which she has been severed: her young son, Jackson, and the San Francisco of her youth. Inside is a new reality: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive; the bluffing and pageantry and casual acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike; and the deadpan absurdities of institutional living, portrayed with great humor and precision.u003cbru003e u003cbru003e Stunning and unsentimental, u003ciu003eThe Mars Roomu003c/iu003e is “wholly authentic…profound…luminous” (u003ciu003eThe Wall Street Journalu003c/iu003e),u003cbu003e u003c/bu003e “one of those books that enrage you even as they break your heart” (u003ciu003eThe New York Times Book Review, u003c/iu003ecover review)—a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America. It is audacious and tragic, propulsive and yet beautifully refined and “affirms Rachel Kushner as one of our best novelists” (u003ciu003eEntertainment Weeklyu003c/iu003e).
