Room by Emma Donaghue.

                                   Room by Emma Donoghue.

"I was a student. It was early in the morning, I was crossing a parking lot to get to the college library, listening to…this man ran up asking for help, his dog was having a fit and he thought it might be dying…"

It sounds innocent enough doesn't it? What followed was a shocking account of a young woman's abduction, an innocent victim who lost seven good years of her life locked up like an animal by a monster who wanted to control women and gratify his sexual desires. A pervert. Too many disturbed guys preying on women.

"Too grim and heartbreaking for some viewers, Room is nevertheless an extraordinary film so powerful and unforgettable that it must be seen." Time Out.

Ma and 5 year old Jack were incarcerated in a 11 by 11 Room which was in a soundproofed garden shed in the backyard of Old Nick who "stole" her. She was kidnapped when she was a 19 year old student and imprisoned for seven years. It could have been longer. The story begins with Jack celebrating his fifth birthday. He was born on the Rug on the floor. A stain is clearly visible after all this time. Very symbolic. His present is a picture of himself drawn by his Ma whilst he was sleeping. He believes that the Room and everything it contains are real and that the rest of the world exists on television. Outside Room he believes it is outer space. He also thinks that he came down from heaven.

Jack narrates the story and we are soon made aware of his confusion over the truth of Outside as opposed to being trapped inside Room. Donoghue based her story on the Fritzi case which came to light in April 2008 in Amstetten in Austria. It is inconceivable to think that a father would abduct his daughter, sexually abuse her and imprison her in the basement of the family home for 24 years. She had eight children, one of them died. Three of them Kerstin, Stefan and Felix, who was only five like Jack, remained in the basement with Elisabeth their mother. They were eventually discovered when Kerstin had to be taken to hospital.

Like Old Nick, Josef punished his family by shutting off their lights or refusing to deliver food for days at a time. He threatened them that if they tried to escape he would gas them. He admitted to giving them an electric shock if they meddled with the cellar door. Shocking. "Room" is a difficult read for anyone but it's a story that needs telling in spite of its bleakness. The film starring Brie Larson, who won an Oscar for her role, has encouraged sales of the book most recently. Time Out referred to the film as being "too grim and heartbreaking for some viewers." Room " is  nevertheless an extraordinary film so powerful and unforgettable that it must be seen." And the book needs to be read.

Old Nick is almost double Ma's age and visits Room after 9.0.p.m. for sexual gratification. "He's not human like us. He only happens in the night, like bats." Jack has to be hidden, wrapped in Rug and stowed away in Wardrobe, like an item of clothing rather than a little boy. Old Nick plays with Ma's head driving her crazy. When he gets angry with her he strikes her and leaves them without any electricity. One time they have to survive without any power for three days. "He thinks we're things that belong to him, because room does." On such days they have to eat raw vegetables or a cold mushy bagel.

They have their rituals to create a sense of normality. Mondays is laundry day when they get into the bath wearing their socks, underwear, sheets and dishtowels then squish all the dirt out. Tuesday is a cleaning day, Thursday another laundry day and on Fridays the mattress is flipped over. The rest of the time they watch tv or play inventive games or read. Anything to retain some level of sanity and normality.

As the story develops, Ma tries to explain to Jack that life exists outside of Room. She tells him she was adopted and she has a brother called Paul and parents. Jack thought she lived in a house on television. How else could he understand life in such a limited world as his inside Room? He thinks Ma is trying to trick him.

"We're like people in a book, and he won't let anybody read it.

Attempts to escape during the first eighteen months of captivity were futile. Ma would throw things at the skylight, objects such as big saucepans, chairs, even the trash can but the glass was so reinforced, completely unbreakable that the glass didn't even crack. Digging a hole also proved unsuccessful when she discovered a chain link fence beneath the floor.

Out of desperation she took the lid off the toilet seat and smashed it down over Old Nick's head but it wasn't a hard enough thrust. She pressed a knife against his throat demanding to know the code on the door but he easily overpowered her and broke her wrist. He then threatened her that if she ever pulled a stunt like that again he'd go away forever and let her starve to death.

When it proves too much for Ma who has days when according to Jack, she is Gone, incapable of getting out of bed, semi-conscious she plans the Great Escape, hoping to trick the ogre into releasing Jack under the pretence of serious illness and being in need of urgent emergency care. Jack's alleged fever doesn't fully convince him so Plan A is abandoned for Plan B, something more daring and dangerous.

"Remember how they crawled through the dark tunnel away from the Nazis? One at a time. That's how we'll do it, when you're ready."

Ma reminds Jack of the Count of Monte Cristo who was disguised as dead. Jack would be wrapped up in his rug: "When Old Nick comes back I'm going to tell him you died. I'm going to show him the rug all rolled up with you inside it." Ma goes through the plan over and over with Jack: Dead, Truck, Run, Police, Save Ma. It will prove to be the most frightening experience in Jack's life so far. "Stay stiff, stiff, stiff like a robot."

"I'm so scared I can't be brave, stop stop stop but I can't make a sound or he'll guess the trick and he'll eat me head first, he'll rip off my legs."

The escape is full of tension and builds to a climax when everything goes wrong, when Old Nick realises he has been duped. Ma is left in Room awaiting her fate whilst Jack, pretending to be dead is risking his life in an attempt to save her. Read on, it gets better and better but I don't want to spoil it for you. Then watch the film!

Larson insists that the film is uplifting rather than harrowing in the way it emphasises the mother/child bond.
"For me, it is a love story. It's about love, freedom and perseverance. I wanted to fully understand what it was like for Ma to be in the room for so long. To simulate that, I stayed at home for a month and only left to go to the gym. I had very little connection to the outside world and I stayed out of the sun since Ma has not had sun on her skin in many years." Martyn Palmer Radio Times. 2016.

For most of us the good news is that Room is to be staged in East London in 2017. "Donoghue said the stage version, which will have its premiere at Theatre Royal Stratford East as part of its 2017 season, would be totally different to the novel and the movie she scripted."
"The script will be broken up by songs, though Donoghue said it will not be a conventional musical. I think it is a really universal story because everybody starts life in a relatively small place, every newborn is in a tiny social circle, and you've no choice over the family you're born into. Everybody starts in this arbitrary way and as you grow older you realise there are other worlds, other possibilities, and it's a bigger world out there." Robert Dex. Arts Correspondent. Evening Standard. London.

Publisher: Picador.   ISBN:  9-781-509-803-156.

REVIEW it by Carol Naylor.