Room without a view

Dark, sadistic and horrifying. Emma Donoghue's Room, nominated for the 2010 Man Booker Prize, has all the conventional traits of child abuse thrillers. Albeit, with just one subtle difference. The story is told by five-year old Jack. Loosely based on the Fritzl case in Austria (April 2008), Donoghue, mother of two young children, was seized by the notion of a child narrating his own story of emergence from a locked room into a world he hadn't known was there.

Jack has never left Room, the 11-by-11-foot home he shares with Ma, Plant, Rug, Duvet, Melted Spoon, and the dozen or so other semi-personified objects that make up his world. He's never seen grass or trees or any animal larger than a mouse, except on TV. He's not shared any real experience of the world beyond his confinement. The author has invented the abduction of a 19-year-old college student, who's been kept in a soundproof garden shed for seven years. The room has the basic necessities like a hot plate and a sink, a toilet and a refrigerator. It also has the grim memories of a stillborn child that was born before Jack. Her captor brings her enough food to survive, provides for the occasional Sunday treats and disciplines the captive duo by cutting off electricity and heat.

Full review here Financial Express