Рейчел Кушнер - The Mars Room

7. Romy says, “To stay sane you formed a version of yourself you could believe in” ( page 269), and earlier, “Jackson believed in the world” ( page 156). Kushner makes a connection between the wide-eyed optimism of youth and the crushing realities of what the world can be for those born without power or wealth, and for those who have made irreversible mistakes. Discuss the role that Jackson serves in the novel. What does he symbolize to Romy?

8. “Part of the intimacy with nature that you acquire is the sharpening of the senses. Not that your hearing and eyesight become more acute, but you notice things more” ( page 299). This is presumably the voice of Ted Kaczynski, but its placement suggests a link to Romy’s escape into nature. Why does she end up alone in the woods? What does this say about the human need for connection with the outside? In what other ways does Romy seem to be shut off from the outside world? What role could a connection with nature play in rehabilitation?

9. What role does gender play throughout the novel? What differences did you see between the experiences of incarcerated men and incarcerated women? How did gender factor into Romy’s trial and sentencing?

10. Serenity Smith is a transgender woman whose presence generates an outsized reaction from the women of Stanville. Discuss the controversy among the prisoners concerning this character. How do their surroundings contribute to their reaction to her? And what does Serenity’s predicament say about the structure of prison? What is society to do with people who cannot assimilate into the caged spaces allotted for them?

11. Hauser can be seen in different lights. Was he a predator, or was he a man who meant well but could not resist temptation? Discuss the effects of his actions on Romy.

12. The Mars Room comes from the name of the strip club where Romy works before she is incarcerated. What does the phrase “Mars Room” bring to mind? What do these two worlds—a central California women’s prison and a San Francisco strip club—share?

13. In the final moments of the book, Romy is in the forest, bathed in light: “I emerged from the tree and turned into the light, not slow. I ran toward them, toward the light” ( page 336). There is something both heavenly and hellish in this description. Discuss the dichotomies: Is the scene ultimately despairing or hopeful?

14. In the final paragraph of the book, Romy reflects on giving Jackson life. She calls giving life “everything.” Is this a comment on her own life, or some manner of reinterpreting life as extending into other regions beyond the one she’s been given and that has been taken away? Is it some way of being part of something in the world that is larger than she is and that goes beyond her? What is the import of the final sentence? Is your sense that the world, at the end, is a human world, a natural world, both, or neither?

1. Discuss the works of Henry David Thoreau and how his essays and transcendental ideas might relate to The Mars Room . In a similar fashion, consider the crimes, anger, and solitude of Ted Kaczynski. What does it mean to be a misanthropist? And what does it mean to be a misanthropist with rigid ideas about society and how it should be organized?

2. Watch a classic prison film, such as Cool Hand Luke , starring Paul Newman, or Jim Jarmusch’s Down by Law .

3. Kushner is an accomplished author and journalist, with a wide range of interests. Get to know more of her work by taking a look at her previous novels, Telex from Cuba and The Flamethrowers .

4. Kushner was interviewed by the New Yorker about her novel The Mars Room . Share the article with your group to learn more about Kushner’s inspiration, her process, and her views: https://www.newyorker.com/books/this-week-in-fiction/fiction-this-week-rachel-kushner-2018-02-12.

5. Get involved in helping members of your community who are impacted by incarceration: you can send books to prisoners through numerous organizations, or offer aid to family members of prisoners, such as through Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, or find an individual plan that appeals to you to help others. If you or someone you know has been impacted by incarceration, share your story with your book group. After reading The Mars Room , perhaps they will be primed to listen carefully, without judgments.

Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of The Flamethrowers , which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Folio Prize and a New York Times top ten book of 2013. Her first novel, Telex from Cuba , was also a finalist for the National Book Award and was reviewed on the cover of the New York Times . She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her fiction has appeared in the New Yorker , the Paris Review , and Harper’s . Her novels have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

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Telex from Cuba

The Flamethrowers

The Strange Case of Rachel K

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2018 by Rachel Kushner

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First Scribner hardcover edition May 2018

Excerpts adapted from Ted Kaczynski’s coded diary, deciphered by James Benning. The epigraph on p. vii is from “Entrückung” by Stefan George, translated by Carl Engel.

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