Room

by Emma Donoghue (New York: Little, Brown, 2010)

“All our relatives, you’re related to them now too,” says Grandma. “What’s ours is yours.”

Room is narrated by five-year-old Jack, who has been kept in the same small space since the day he was born. Jack and his mother never go outside, and never see anybody except Old Nick, the man who keeps them prisoner, so they have come to rely on each other for everything. After an exhilarating escape from the confines of their old life, Jack and Ma must adjust to being Outside, and Jack has to accept that the strange new world – our modern environment – he now inhabits is safe and real. An original and suspenseful work of literature, Room is often disturbing but always compelling, a story that at its heart is about the strength of a mother’s devotion to her child.

Visit Jack and Ma’s Room here.

Last Orders

by Graham Swift (London: Picador, 1996)

“I see him scratch his neck and reset his cap. I see him light up a snout, dicky chest or no dicky chest, and breathe out the first drag, bottom lip jutting, then rub his chin with the tip of his thumb, cigarette between his fingers, then run the ball of his thumb across his forehead, and I know I do all those things, without helping it, the same gestures, the same motions.”

Three men, friends since WWII, have gathered in their local pub to carry out the final wishes of Jack Dodds, a London butcher who requested that his ashes be scattered into the sea. Jack’s adopted son Vince drives Ray, Vic and Lenny to the pier at Margate and as they travel, we learn their history. Each chapter, some just a page or two long, is narrated by a different person in the form of an interior monologue but Ray also talks us through the men’s road trip and so becomes the centre of consciousness in the book. Years of friendship and resentments lie behind every comment made and as the book progresses, we learn why none of their wives came along. Winner of the 1996 Booker Prize, Last Orders makes wonderful use of English working-class slang (snouts, daffs, aint) and tells the story of four families through an interwoven series of conversations, shifting between times and tenses, memories and revelations.

Watch a trailer for the film adaptation of Last Orders here.