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LITTLE, BROWN, 2010
(available in paperback from Back Bay, 2011)
THE NARRATOR OF EMMA DONOGHUE’S NOVEL is a five-year-old boy who leads a busy life. Jack and his mother’s days are filled with imagination, love for each other, and “thousands of things to do,” according to Jack. But their world is small, eleven feet by eleven feet, to be exact, and with only a skylight that hints at a world beyond their room. This tiny world as seen through Jack’s eyes is all that there is. Inanimate objects become as real as playmates to Jack, and in his universe, have proper names: Rug, Plant, Room. Only one visitor ever enters Jack’s world, a man named Old Nick, and when he comes Jack hides in a wardrobe. But Jack’s magical cocoon is anything but, and as more is revealed about the circumstances of his birth and confinement it is, by any adult measure, a nightmare beyond comprehension.
When asked for a recipe to pair with Room, Emma Donoghue turned her thoughts to her little hero, Jack, who celebrates five birthdays in the tiny enclosure that forms his entire world, the space he calls, simply, Room.
She writes:
In the first chapter of Room, Ma and Jack make a very simple sponge cake for his fifth birthday, but to his crushing disappointment, there are no birthday candles on top, only five M&M’s. For his sixth birthday, she promises, he will have candles. Well, this is the cake I imagine Ma making Jack, one year after that scene. A luscious devil’s food cake, which she will stud all over with candies, as well as adding six birthday candles—perhaps the kind that magically relight themselves after being blown out. (I’ve been in the world for forty-one years and I still have no idea how that trick’s done.) Jack will only manage a small slice, but I think by his sixth birthday he’ll have made a host of friends to share his cake with.
The cake recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart Holiday, October 2007.
For the cake 1¼ cups unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder 1¼ cups hot water 1½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter 2¼ cups granulated sugar 3 cups all-purpose flour 1¼ teaspoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon baking soda 4 large eggs 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1 cup sour cream |
For the frosting 6 tablespoons unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder 6 tablespoons hot water 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature ½ cup confectioners’ sugar Generous pinch of kosher salt 1 pound semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled 1 cup candy-coated chocolate pieces, for decorating |
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 8-inch round cake pans, line bottoms with parchment paper, and butter the paper.
To make the cake: Whisk together cocoa powder and hot water until smooth. Set aside.
Melt butter and granulated sugar in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Remove from heat and transfer to a mixer. Beat on medium-low speed until cooled, 4–5 minutes. While butter and sugar are mixing, sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Add eggs one at a time to the butter mixture, beating after each addition. Beat in vanilla and cocoa powder mixture. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture in two batches, alternating with sour cream and beginning and ending with flour. Beat until just combined. Divide batter between pans, and bake until a cake tester inserted into center comes out clean, 50–60 minutes. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Invert cakes onto rack, peel off parchment, and let cool completely.
To make the frosting: Whisk together cocoa powder and hot water until smooth. Beat butter, confectioners’ sugar, and salt in a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy. Reduce to medium-low speed; slowly add melted chocolate and cocoa powder mixture and beat until combined. If frosting is not set, let stand, stirring occasionally until thickened, 20–30 minutes.
Using a serrated knife, trim tops of cake layers to make level. Transfer one cake layer to a cake stand, and spread with 1 cup frosting. Top with remaining cake layer, and coat top and sides with remaining frosting, spreading it in a swirling motion. Cake can be refrigerated overnight. Before serving, let cake come to room temperature.
Decorate with candy-coated chocolate pieces.
Yield: One 2-layer cake; 10 to 12 servings
The members of the Book Club Eleven hail from the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles. For their discussion of Room, the Eleven met at a local restaurant that allowed them to tape off an 11 ÷ 11-foot “room.” Hailey Soren, an architect, thought she had a good sense of the physical limitations of such a small space but was amazed to see how small it is when you actually measure it out. “I know from experience with clients that until you actually tape off a space it’s very hard to understand size, scale, and proportion,” says Soren. “Being restricted to the same space as the characters helped us to understand their reality in a more meaningful way.”
“It was mind-boggling that two people lived in such confines without access to the outside for over five years,” adds Jennifer Currier.
To mark Jack’s fifth birthday, Carrie Murray decorated the room with balloons and brought Jack’s birthday cake, made from a cake mix and decorated with M&M’s. “Ma used all of her resources to make Jack a cake from a boxed mix,” says Soren. Soren also treated her fellow members to goodie bags with homemade Cheerio bars, made with cereal, corn syrup, sugar, and peanut butter. “The recipe was incredibly simple, and was intended to reflect the meager ingredients that may have been found in Room,” she adds. “Jack ate Cheerios most mornings, and counted to one hundred as he rationed off his breakfast every day. I wanted to make Cheerio bars—something a five-year-old could make with very little help from Mom—as a tribute to the book.”
Most of the members of Book Club Eleven are mothers, and this book hit close to home for many, says Soren. Discussion focused on what it would be like to raise a child in such conditions. “The push and pull of wanting Mommy near and far, and learning the hard truths of the world for the first time struck a chord for many of us,” explains Soren.
“Just the thought of raising a child in that environment made me cringe,” says Kathy Schuh. “But I found myself drawn in by the story and by the second half realized why the author chose to write it from Jack’s perspective. This subject would be too dark if it were not told from the innocent eyes of a child.”
Members of the Book Club Eleven said it was especially interesting to ponder what a child who interacted only with his mother would be like as he grew older.
Caroline Zoba’s San Francisco–based book club began their Room meeting by discussing the dimensions of the room in the story. “Ironically, all twelve of us were crammed into my apartment’s small living room, which by coincidence matches the dimensions of the room where Jack and Ma were held captive,” says Zoba. “We tried to imagine where each furniture item would have been: bed, dresser, bath, and so on. We were all a little stunned trying to picture Jack running track and Ma doing laundry in such a small space.”
The group created a potluck menu to pair with their book discussion. “Spaghetti and the ‘song of the meatball’ was a favorite food of Jack’s in the book, and so this was our main dish,” says Zoba. “Jack also talked about ‘slippery freezy green beans’ and cooked green beans, so one of our side dishes was a creative, delicious green bean dish.” Other sides included a bean salad (in place of the canned baked beans mentioned in the story), and a strawberry-feta salad, as nutrition was of the utmost importance to Jack and Ma. “For dessert, we played off the cereal mentioned in the book and made Rice Krispie treats,” says Zoba. “We couldn’t leave out Jack’s birthday cake, so we also had cupcakes with chocolate icing and Teddy Grahams as a nod to Jack’s childhood! Needless to say, we had quite a feast, which kept us very content during our complex book discussion.”
