Book Review: Falconer

Any list of great books by American novelists must include John Cheever's 1977 Falconer. I read it when it was first released and many times since. It has an honored place on my bookshelf because of its beauty and penetrating honesty. Cheever never wrote a bad story, but with Falconer he outdid himself. The novel focuses on the story of a university professor, Ezekiel Farragut, who kills his brother and is sentenced to Falconer State Prison.

Farragut (fratricide, zip to ten, #734-508-32) had been brought to this old iron place on a late summer's day. He wore no leg irons but was manacled to nine other men, four of them black and all of them younger than he. The windows of the van were so high and unclean that he could not see the color of the sky or any of the lights and shapes of the world he was leaving. He had been given forty milligrams of methadone three hours earlier and, torpid, he wanted to see the light of day.

We follow Farragut as he copes with prison life. The miracle of the novel is in discovering why he's a drug abuser and how he came to murder his brother. More than anything, Farragut searches for understanding and love. He finds it in an unlikely place within the walls of the prison. The novel's unusual, uplifting and moving ending is among the best in literature.

>>> READ THE OPENING PAGES OF FALCONER HERE.