I started with basic queries like ‘What truck would my psycho drive?’ and ‘what’s a two-by-four’, but pretty soon he was volunteering sicko extras like the chain-link fence built into the walls and floor, and the fact that Old Nick wouldn’t want the neighbours to smell any spicy food coming from Room.ĮMMA DONOGHUE: Emily, I’m all talk: what writing ROOM taught me was that I know exactly how to be the perfect mother, but I’m not willing to do it for more than ten minutes at a time.

So I was wondering-how many of the games they play and conversations they have did you draw from real life?ĮMMA DONOGHUE: Oh, and another part of how I got into Old Nick’s head, Sarah, was that I asked my manly brother-in-law Jeff. QUESTION FROM EMILY: I read the galley for this book while pregnant with my first baby and it was just amazing timing- i was enthralled by what a mother could be- how creative and protective and inventive.

The days I spent on home-design websites, at, or researching shockproof security glass… But what was really creepy about it was that it made me realise that the author is always the Old Nick of her book: locking her characters in, deciding what resources to allot them, what’s going to happen. Within a few days I knew I wanted to write the story of a boy who would have only that much in common with Felix Fritzl, that he’d be five and stepping into our world for the first time.ĮMMA DONOGHUE: A few other literary influences: Samuel Richardson’s CLARISSA (1747) for that moment-by-moment telling of suffering, and John Fowles’s THE COLLECTOR for the captor’s perspective.ĮMMA DONOGHUE: Sarah, you’re right that it was creepy to spend so much time seeing things from Old Nick’s point of view in order to get the back story straight, even though none of the novel itself was going to be told from his point of view. THE NEW YORKER: Were there any other specific triggers for the book, other than motherhood and The Road?ĮMMA DONOGHUE: Well, yes, the headlines about the release of the Fritzl family, back in April 2008. Jon is so smart in comparing it to THE ROAD because McCarthy’s novel was one of the triggers for my writing ROOM I wanted to see what a mother-child modern myth would look like, because his father-child one was so powerful. I’ve already been enjoying Macy, Ian and Jon’s posts on the novel. And thanks for being here.ĮMMA DONOGHUE: The excitement is all mine. QUESTION FROM TYLER: Hi Emma- I agree with Cynthia, thanks so much the amazing book and taking the time to chat with us! I found motherhood a crash course in existentialism (what is my purpose in life, am I mistress or slave of my destiny, when the hell do I get some sleep?) and ROOM was the result. EMMA DONOGHUE: One five-year-old, Wendy, my son Finn, who’s now seven and has managed to read the first two pages of ROOM.

Room novel by emma donoghue