The Night Room is a Young Adult Science Fiction novel by Canadian author E.M. Goldman published by Puffin Books in 1995.
The novel follows Ira Martinic, a high school junior, and six of his classmates. They have been selected for an experimental virtual reality program called Argus, designed to "remember" them eleven years into the future at their ten-year high school reunion, where they will see a snapshot of how their lives turned out so they can make choices to pursue or defy the results.
Except during the program, they discover that one of them is shown to be dead in only the next few weeks, and a rush to save their classmate's life ensues.
The Night Room contains examples of:
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Between Ira and Tess, who are somewhat friends but spend most of their time bickering. Of course, Tess has a huge crush on Ira, who hasn't considered her as a love interest at all until after his time in Argus.
- Big Fun: Joy is seen to be this, being very charismatic and having wonderful comedic timing on the stage, but wishing desperately to lose weight to appear more attractive.
- Book Smart: Barbara, the daughter of two university professors, is a certified genius.
- Break-Up Bonfire: While Michael and Sarah were already broken up beforehand, he lied to her when she came requesting a book of poetry from her mother, and once she left, he carefully ripped the entire thing to shreds page by page to burn in his ashtray, even after reading the sweet dedication her father wrote to her mother.
- Chore Character Exploration: Sandra and her mother discuss Sandra's opportunity in Argus and the future while folding sheets together.
- Disappeared Dad:
- Graham's father is in prison after killing a man in a bar brawl
- Joy's father recently died and her entire family moved to be closer to her mother's extended family.
- Domestic Abuse: Addressed a few places in the book.
- Graham's father was shown to be very abusive to his wife and child before being arrested for murder.
- Graham in the future is shown to be violent toward his wife as well, something that horrifies him.
- Michael is pegged as a potential domestic abuser, although he never quite gets there in the book.
- Ensemble Cast: The Night Room has an almost The Breakfast Club feel to it, following seven different high school students from various cliques and walks of life, including
- Ira Martinic, The Protagonist and The Everyman
- Tess Norville, a school reporter
- Barbara Flores, the school genius
- Graham Hork, a poor student from an abusive home
- Mac Collier, a football star
- Sandra Wilcox, student council president
- Joy Abercrombie, a theater kid
- Also included are POV scenes from other characters, including the scientist who invented Argus, her assistant, and a young man set on destroying the program completely
- Future Me Scares Me: Graham suffers from this, after discovering Argus has predicted he will come out an abusive alcoholic like his father.
- Grade Skipper: Michael says he spent his entire life being accelerated through school until he dropped out from sheer boredom. Since he sold an invention that's a critical piece of virtual reality tech, he doesn't even need to worry about school or a job.
- Holodeck Malfunction: Pretty much the plot. The Argus program is compared often to the Holodeck, even if it's not currently used much for recreation, and Michael infected it to kill a random user, unbeknownst to anyone else.
- Intrepid Reporter: Tess is a teenage version of one, and even sneaks in to see Dr. Halstrom hoping to get an interview (she doesn't).
- Missing Mom:
- Mac lives with just his father after his mother walked out on both of them. His father seems to be a fairly dysfunctional parent comparatively, but it's difficult to say a mother who left her child in such a situation is a fit parent, either.
- Tess's mother isn't missing, per se, but she works so much she never appears in the book even though all the other parents who still live with their children do.
- Married in the Future:
- Tess and Ira find themselves married in any version of the "future" in which they're both alive.
- Barbara finds herself married to the hero of a romance novel her intake interviewer was reading at the time
- Graham is married to a woman he finds himself hating.
- Mental Time Travel: Since the program is done entirely via virtual reality, the future predictions don't actually exist and the bodies the students inhabit there are fictional.
- Multiple-Choice Future: The entire concept of the Argus program is that the students will have opportunities to change what they saw and that nothing is yet set in stone.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Michael has a remorseful breakdown at the end of the book when he realizes he nearly killed someone.
- Parental Neglect: Graham's mother can't even be bothered to sign a permission slip for her son, let alone parent him.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Ira and Tess have a moment like this with Dr. Halstom's assistant, who then adds that they're still in high school, which Ira doesn't think is related.
- Shout-Out: The book is full of allusions:
- Argus is Odysseus's dog from The Odyssey
- The book's dedication is "To The Crews of The Starships Enterprise" and the novel includes a fictional "article" discussing Star Trek's holodeck.
- One character also has a bumper sticker reading "He's Dead, Jim."
- Tess calls Ira "Ichabod" after "Ichabod Crane"
- Suicide Is Painless: The book ends on this, as Argus is corrupted and programmed to kill someone after showing them achieving their greatest success.
- Survivor Guilt: Dr. Halstrom has a serious case of this after her fiance, Rolfe, died in a skiing accident by avalanche while they were enjoying the day together. So much so that her vision of success is reaching him and dying together.
- Too Clever by Half: Michael suffers from this, insisting he's too intelligent to even fit into a pattern his ex-girlfriend has to angry abusers.
- Virtual Reality: The Argus program is comes on a headset to immerse participants in a projected reality.
- Zip Me Up: Ira runs into this during his time in Argus, with Tess. Initially, he is baffled by the woman who wants him to help her dress.
