Room – Emma Donoghue

This is the darling of the book club crowd right now, and I think it’s the bookie’s favourite for this year’s Orange Prize. Very good it is too, walking the line between populist and literary with style.

The narrator is a five year old boy named Jack who lives in Room with his Ma, oblivious to the existence of any world outside. To Jack this is normality, and his perspective partially alleviates the horror that our adult knowledge brings to the situation.

The first half of the story is brilliant, culminating in a sequence that had me breathless as I was reading, it’s really so effective. The intensity dissipates somewhat in the second half, but the abiding memory for me is of the character of Ma, a fierce and smart mother who will let nothing compromise her love for her son.