Room
Welcome to the strange little world of ROOM, my new novel, which has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
Jack and Ma live in a locked room that measures eleven foot by eleven. When he turns five, he starts to ask questions, and his mother reveals to him that there is a world outside. Told entirely in Jack’s voice, ROOM is no horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.
For blogs, a reading guide, floorplans and lots of other extras about ROOM check out www.picador.com/, www.harpercollins.ca/books/Room-Emma-Donoghue?isbn=9781554688319&HCHP=TB_Room and www.roomthebook.com
ROOM was published August 6 in the UK/Ireland/Aus/NZ by Picador (Pan Macmillan), and has already entered the Irish and UK bestseller charts.
hardback ISBN 9780330519014
Adobe Digital Edition e-book ISBN 9780330533973
‘Somehow, via the narrative voice of Jack and his stoic and heroic making-sense in words of his small world, it breaks free of every preset category. This is a novel, and a child, that will not be confined…. Pungent and percussive, Jack’s new-minted language grabs hold of his constricted life with startling force and zest … The book often bounces along through its profound darkness with a near-comic exuberance.’ – INDEPENDENT
‘Charming, funny, artfully constructed and at times almost unbearably moving, Donoghue mines material that on the face of it appears intractably bleak and surfaces with a powerful, compulsively readable work of fiction that defies easy categorization. … Part childhood adventure story, part adult thriller, Room is above all the most vivid, radiant and beautiful expression of maternal love I have ever read. Emma Donoghue has stared into the abyss, honoured her sources and returned with the literary equivalent of a great Madonna and Child. This book will break your heart." – IRISH TIMES
‘As a life-affirming fable of parent-child love, and an antidote to the prurience of so much crime fiction, it's a triumph, and deserves to be a hit.’ – DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘It takes a consummate writer to make us marvel at the mundane. Beckett's Waiting for Godot did it, of course. So did Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, set in a 1950s Siberian labour camp. Emma Donoghue does it so spectacularly that we are taken by surprise when, in the middle of the novel, resourceful Ma's escape plans swing into action… Donoghue’s great strength – apart from her storytelling gift – is her emotional intelligence.’ - IRISH INDEPENDENT
‘Both hard to put down and profoundly affecting... Donoghue has crafted a narrative that moves as breathlessly as a serial-killer thriller while convincingly portraying, with the precision of a science-fiction novel, how a boy might believe that a room is his whole world.’ – SUNDAY TIMES
‘A novel like no other … The grotesque is consistently balanced with the uplifting and there is a moment, halfway through the novel, where you feel you would fight anyone who tried to wrestle it from your grasp with the same ferocity that Ma fights for Jack, such is the author's power to make out of the most vile circumstances something absorbing, truthful and beautiful.’ - OBSERVER
‘A celebration of the freedoms we take for granted. A gripping, moving read.’ – TIME OUT
‘The story is told with unsurpassed panache. … ROOM will certainly be much garlanded, and it will deserve every prize it gets. Fantastic.’ – READERS DIGEST
The Canadian edition follows on September 11 from HarperCollins Canada:
ISBN 9780330533973 and ISBN10: 1554688310
Finally, ROOM will be published in the US on September 13 by Little, Brown (Hachette Book Group):
hardcover ISBN10: 1554688310.
large print trade paperback print on demand ISBN 9780316120579
Open E-book ISBN 9780316129114
unabridged audiobook on cd ISBN 9781607886273 or downloadable 9781607886280
‘A searing tale of survival and recovery, in the voice of a five-year-old boy… Wrenching, as befits the grim subject matter, but also tender, touching and at times unexpectedly funny.’ – KIRKUS (starred review)
‘Enough plot twists to provide a dramatic arc of breathtaking suspense… Donoghue’s bravado in investigating that potentially terrifying transformation grants the novel a frightening resonance that will keep readers rapt.’ – PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)
‘[A] whammy of a novel’ – MARIE CLAIRE
‘A bravura performance.’ - ELLE
‘A novel so disturbing that we defy you to stop thinking about it, days later … beautifully served by Jack's wise but innocent voice.’ – O MAGAZINE
Barnes & Noble
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Room/Emma-Donoghue/e/9780316098335/
Books a Million
http://www.booksamillion.com/product/9780316098335?id=4755018709846
Borders
http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0316098337
Indiebound
http://www.indiebound.org/book/9780316098335
Powell’s
http://www.powells.com/biblio/62-9780316098335-0
UK edition:
US edition:
Canadian edition:
Check out www.roomthebook.com for updates and lots of extras.
Check out an interview with me talking about ROOM and reading the first pages:
Michael Cunningham: ‘ROOM is that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art. I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can’t compare it to any other book. Suffice to say that it’s potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory.”
Audrey Niffenegger: ‘"Emma Donoghue's writing is superb alchemy, changing innocence into horror and horror into tenderness. ROOM is a book to read in one sitting. When it’s over you look up: the world looks the same but you are somehow different and that feeling lingers for days.’
Anita Shreve: ‘I loved ROOM. Such incredible imagination, and dazzling use of language. And with all this, an entirely credible, endearing little boy. It's unlike anything I've ever read before.’
John Boyne: ‘ROOM is one of the most profoundly affecting books I've read in a long time. Jack moved me greatly. His voice, his story, his innocence, his love for Ma combine to create something very unusual and, I think, something very important. I read the book over two days, desperate to know how their story would end . . . Room deserves to reach the widest possible audience.’
Translation rights for ROOM have already been sold in seventeen territories: to Editions Stock in France, Mondadori in Italy, Mouria in the Netherlands, Alfaguara in Spain, Grup 62 in Barcelona (Catalan), Doğan Egmont in Turkey, Verus in Brazil, Ikar in Slovakia, Euromedia in the Czech Republic, Sonia Draga in Poland, Centrepolygraph in Russia, Lind and Co in Sweden, Miskal in Israel, Locus in Taiwan (complex Chinese characters), Shanghai 99 in China (simple Chinese characters), Kodansha Ltd. in Japan and Amarin in Thailand.
For tour details, go to NEWS.