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When a particular quotation keeps appearing before your eyes, it must be speaking to the times.
The characters at times seem like ciphers for the authors art historical project.
The ideas sparkle but the plotting especially a strand to do with adultery is thin by comparison.
Theres a similar imbalance at work inThe Mars Room.
Once she arrives at Stanville, shes disciplined by indifferent or sadistic guards and things only get worse.
Kushners narrative attention turns to the economy of prison life in forensic detail.
To anyone without experience of prison this will be jarring and appalling.
Shes undeniably sympathetic but not always interesting.
Theyre the best thing in the book.
The third-person sections are even more unstable, lurching from free indirect discourse to what seems like authorial commentary.
Kushner invokes other literary traditions withinThe Mars Roomas its narrative takes on an increasing strain of cultural criticism.
But perhaps suspense and beauty are mere luxuries when the mission is righteous.
