"It’s 2003 and Romy Hall 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: the San Francisco of her youth and her young son, Jackson. 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, which Kushner evokes with great humor and precision."
After reading that blurb, you might think this would be like Orange is the New Black. Actually, not really. The main character in this book is pretty realistic about her situation and there's not as much focus on her life in prison as there is on her life before she landed there. The Mars Room is a strip club, “the worst and most notorious, the very seediest and most circuslike place there is.” Romy works there as a lap dancer and has a dry sense of humor about the place. She also has a dry sense of humor about her life choices that have led her to the Mars Room. If you've ever read The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, you have an idea of what Romy's life has been like.
The book has an interesting feel to it that I found a little claustrophobic --- you get such a sense of close quarters, or a closeness to the character, that it can be a little daunting. Romy makes bad choice after bad choice and then when she's imprisoned, she realizes that all of this has led to heartbreak, as her parental rights are stripped from her. You do meet other characters, such as Conan, one of Romy's friends in prison. You also meet characters like Doc, a dirty cop serving a prison sentence at the same time as Romy (they are connected via another character). Prison life is described in gritty, grim detail.
I liked this book, although the occasional shift in narrator was a little confusing. I found Romy to be interesting, although I found her story is pretty depressing. However, I wanted to know what was going to happen to her and the book was compelling.
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