“Room”, by Emma Donoghue

Jack, a young lad slavishly devoted to his Ma, does double duty in Room, a novel by Irishwoman Emma Donoghue. As narrator, he limits our view to not only what he can see and hear, but also what he can understand. Since he is five years old, that takes some getting used to. And, he is the pivotal character in this exploration of evil in the world, and the power of motherhood.

We open on Jack’s fifth birthday, and spend all of our time within the constraints of a 12 x 12 foot room where he and his unnamed mother live. Since Jack has known no other life, he finds nothing strange in his circumstances, but Ma works overtime making sure it stays that way, and she knows the truth. His friends are inanimate objects, like Bed, Rung, and Meltedy Spoon. There is a TV, receiving only broadcast channels, to which Ma limits access, stating it “will rot our brains.”

Donoghue spend the first third of the book weaving us into Jack’s world and thoughts, before slowly revealing the awful fact of why they are there. Once the secret is out in the open, Ma enlists Jack in a plot to escape. He succeeds, bumbling and scared as only a five year old can be. The middle third thus becomes a nerve-wracking page-turner as we will Jack towards freedom into the moonlight and air, which he has never known before.

Finally, Jack must learn how to live here with the rest of us. And Ma must do the same, and come to grips with the terror of her last seven years, a fearful plight she only survived through the universal power of having someone else so helpless that she alone was responsible for.

This spare, spoiler free plot summary is required, because what Donoghue has to say must be broached from the naïve and fresh perspective of someone as completely ignorant of our world as Jack. But she’s pulled off a miracle here. She has managed to impart so many insights into our world, all within the self-imposed limits of a child narrator.

She explores what it means to be a mother. She presents an uncompromising face of evil in the world. She shows us life and death, and the mundane process of living day-by-day within nothing but your own wits for company. Jack and Ma are worth spending some time with. Their story could be heart-rending and somber, but as Jack writes and lives it, we instead get humor, love and hope.