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The Mars Room
- Narrated by: Rachel Kushner
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
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The Mars Room
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Publisher's Summary
Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Mars Room, written and read by Rachel Kushner.
Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2018.
The New York Times best seller.
Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences, plus six years, at Stanville Women’s Correctional Facility. Outside is the world from which she has been permanently severed: the San Francisco of her youth, changed almost beyond recognition. The Mars Room strip club where she once gave lap dances for a living. And her seven-year-old son, Jackson, now in the care of Romy’s estranged mother.
Inside is a new reality to adapt to: thousands of women hustling for the bare essentials needed to survive. The deadpan absurdities of institutional living, which Kushner details with humour and precision. Daily acts of violence by guards and prisoners alike. Allegiances formed over liquor brewed in socks, and stories shared through sewage pipes.
Romy sees the future stretch out ahead of her in a long, unwavering line - until news from outside brings a ferocious urgency to her existence, challenging her to escape her own destiny and culminating in a climax of almost unbearable intensity. Through Romy - and through a cast of astonishing characters populating The Mars Room - Rachel Kushner presents not just a bold and unsentimental panorama of life on the margins of contemporary America but an excoriating attack on the prison-industrial complex.
Critic Reviews
"An unforgettable novel." (Daily Telegraph)
"More knowing about prison life [than Orange Is the New Black]... so powerful." (New York Times)
"One of America's finest writers." (Vogue)
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What listeners say about The Mars Room
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Emmerson92
- 20-09-2022
For fans of orange is the new black
A gritty and unflinching observation of life in a women’s prison. There’s no sugar coating in this novel, and at times can be stark and severe.
There are several important debates about how the system is often set up to fail those it serves: from the perspective of inmates, tutors, victims of crime and crooked Cops. his is an important read, humanizing inmates serving life sentences & posing the question: are we all a few poor choices away from the same fate?
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Layla Sacker
- 18-08-2018
Pity or blame
Rachel Kushner gives you an insight into the world of women - women who commit crimes - some unspeakable. Women who are incarcerated or on death row and yet the brutality of the system that these woman enter is awful. They don't stand a chance in life and American culture and "justice" receives a lambasting. I still felt pity for "Romy" and for others in that prison. The different narrators also provided insights and perspectives. My only small criticism is that the reader had a very flat and at times monotonous voice that possible did not suit all of the subjects. I would recommend this book - I for one always like to read about experiences I would never enter and the book always held my interest and I found it fascinating.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 19-12-2018
It’s was ok.
This book came highly recommended in a book review and I have to say, I wasn’t overly impressed. It was an ok little story, I stuck it out to the end, but I would be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 24-05-2019
great book
I really loved this book and the narrator was great. I wasn't ready for it to end!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- dr
- 17-06-2019
gritty great read
as usual superb production.
but hard hitting and bleak novel
author's narration excellent
highly recommended
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 21-10-2021
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read
The first hour or two of this book is especially great, it’s both so real and unreal in the way life is, and the way memories are. I keep coming back to this book to listen to those first two hours again, and then I’m gripped to the story so that finishing it is inevitable - just as I was the first time around.
My praise for the first parts shouldn’t make you think the rest is not as good, the entire book is amazing, the first half just hits a particular nostalgic feeling in me personally
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ananth
- 21-10-2018
excellent though imperfect.
superb book written with restraint, candour and heart. The author's narration is wonderful, an honour to have her read her work.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 03-11-2018
struggled to finish
I really struggled to finish this. we knew what the outcome was so going into the details that much and back and forth made me start to lose interest
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