Emma Donoghue

Emma Donoghue's books include the award-winning Room. From the transcript of her 2010 Q&A with NPR's Melissa Block:

BLOCK: And I was in a bit of a quandary when I started thinking about how to talk to you about this book because there's so much I don't want to give away. It's revealed so beautifully throughout the course of the book. And I've actually put reviews down that I was reading in the course of reading your novel because I was learning too much. I wanted to learn it on the page. What do you think people can know safely without ruining the experience, going into "Room"?

Ms. DONOGHUE: Well, what Jack discovers early on, which is a complete shock to him, is that Room is not all there is. I mean, he spent five years thinking that he's in this world with his mother, and that outside there's outer space with stars and planets zooming around.

He thinks that he and his mother are the only two real human beings, and that the man who visits every couple of nights - Old Nick - is kind of borderline -maybe human, maybe not. And he thinks everything he reads about in his few books or on TV is then just fictional. You know, it's all just cartoons. And Jack's discovery that, in fact, they are prisoners is...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue