And they can adapt to the sort of great change that would overwhelm an adult.” But I think kids have a natural tendency to thrive. You only have to read an article about child soldiers or see pictures of kids living on rubbish tips in the developing world to realise that the experience can be terrible. “I mean, I don’t want to idealise the childhood experience. Most of all, she feels that children are resilient. I kept coming back to that William Blake quote about seeing the world in a grain of sand.” I was reading a lot about the anchorites and Emily Dickinson. And we can make it a heaven or we can make it a hell. Maybe we’re all like Jack, hemmed in by our environment and dreaming up a narrative to make sense of it all. If anything, the tale hinges on a metaphysical conceit. This just struck me as an interesting way to approach it.” The Fritzl case was the starting point, but I wanted to write a novel about the world of childhood and about the primal, everyday existence of a mother and son. But I’m simply not qualified to hold forth on these issues.
When all the Cleveland stuff happened, I ended up having to turn my phone off, because it was always BBC World Service on the other end of the line. “People want me to sit on panels with victims of abuse. “I’m constantly called on to comment as an expert witness,” she says. On its publication in 2010, Donoghue’s novel was billed as a thinly veiled depiction of the Fritzl case, a torn-from-the-tabloids account that – depending on your stance – either explored or exploited the consequences of an atrocity. Room author and screenwriter Emma Donoghue. “People never seem to believe me when I say that,” she shrugs. It could have become the sort of terrible abduction thriller we’ve seen 100 times before, or it could have been some awful, sentimental Hallmark card – ‘I love you, mom’, that kind of thing.” Crucially, she does not view Room as a straight horror story. “I had fears about the way it could go if it fell into the wrong hands. By picking the latter option, she could ensure that her story survived the transition. The book was already generating a lot of heat, and her agent had presented her with a choice: cash in on the film rights or sacrifice a quick payday for more creative control. On completing the novel in 2009, for instance, she sat back at her desk immediately to knock out the screenplay. More likely she is Joy, Jack’s imprisoned mother, toiling to deliver her offspring to safety. I’m not entirely convinced that Donoghue is Old Nick. Her children took one look at her and said: “Oh mum, that’s not you.” She explains that she is in promotional mode she doesn’t normally appear this way. Her hair is immaculate, her mouth a vivid line of lipstick. I push open the door marked “Press Room” to find the author arranged rather stiffly on a settee by the wall. The audience at the Room premiere give their thoughts on the film.
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