內容簡介
內容簡介 2018年「曼布克獎」決選名單入圍【2018曼布克獎入圍小說】「庫許納的小說以全面地描寫那些被囚禁的人而聞名，例如家庭、律師、警察、罪犯等，它值得用相等於其全面性的悲傷、愛和人性來閱讀。」─出版家週刊羅米‧霍爾是個單親媽媽，因為失手殺了一個跟蹤狂而被判兩個終身監禁，她正開始服刑，也開始要適應獄中艱困的生活。從獄中回想著過去，羅米訴說出她的過往。以前的她跟毒品總是脫不了關係，曾經為了賺生活費，在一個傳奇性的俱樂部Mars Room當脫衣舞孃，生了一個兒子，他已滿七歲，羅米入獄後由鮮少來往的母親照顧。在獄中，所有的女人都只能靠著些許的必需品求生存，每個人互相交換故事，羅米的獄友有相當男性化以致被誤送到男子監獄的康南、白人至上主義的擁護者諾斯、殺嬰者蘿拉，偶爾被派來感化獄友們的天真英文老師高登也會加入獄中的紛擾。羅米失手殺人的悔意不曾消減過，但是她的動機卻都被錯估了，曾入圍過兩次美國國家圖書獎的庫許納，以帶著些許幽默的方式，清楚仔細地描述女子監獄的生活和司法的漏洞，透過羅米說出美國現代邊緣人地故事。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 relentlessly 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 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.
