This book is about prison. Particularly, being an inmate helpless within the walls of prison. Helplessness, without a feeling of injustice (none pretend innocence), gives the story a unique balance. Each prisoner is introduced with his crime so the reader does not forget why they are jailed, but the crimes are presented simply as facts. No judgement but the reader’s own colors them. The story is written in a way that feels very matter of fact and honest.
These are still humans, the guards and inmates are friendly, and yet neither forgets for an instant the ecosystem of power that puts them at odds, and neither begrudges the other his place within the system. The situation is as it is, and every single prisoner takes whatever advantage he can without hesitation or qualm, and every guard tries to stop him. The characters are real humans, honest about their rolls, who recognize and accept each other. This is not the normal prison story. There are no villainous criminals or torturous guards. Every character recognizes that they will, through their job or by law, be around the other kind consistently, and so they get familiar and tolerate each other.
Things don’t happen for any particular reason, echoing life, and so ridiculousness and unlikelihood abound, but there is no grand plan to persevere against unlikely odds. More precisely, there are many grand plans for escape and pardon, but none feel realistic. Though characters are at times motivated by folly, the narrative never leaves reality.
Time is not quite linear. Events of the past come back slowly to paint a fuller picture of the present. Every present-day day seems more or less like the last, as I imagine days within the harsh walls and routine of prison must. Variation is minimal, and yet hugely remarked upon. The psychology of the setting is masterfully complete.
This book is written about people in prison as one might write about people in space. The setting is a crucial backdrop which motivates many events, but in the end the story is just about people, and the story itself is more a series of events than a cohesive narrative. It projects a feeling more than anything else: people, wherever you put them, whatever they have done, are still just people. I rate this book 6/10.
Reading Rampant 
I like your point about how this book echoes life: it’s quotidian at its heart. All those competing vignettes just drove me crazy trying to figure out what point Cheever was trying to make. Any ideas?
LikeLike
Thank you.
I don’t think he necessarily had just one thing in mind, which yes can be frustrating. I also would’ve preferred a more overarching plot to drive the story along.
To me, the broadest aim was putting the humanity, the banal, back into prison. So many prison stories are about the wrongly convicted and how crushing injustice can be. Those who actually committed their crimes are far harder to sympathize with, especially because the system of prison itself keeps them from interacting with society. Here are people in prison who have done varying horrible things, and yet they remain people who worry about relationships, and whether they’re going to like the food, and what the newest gossip is. The guards are the same. I saw the message that people can do horrible things and still remain people: they do not enter some distant category of existence, removed from the rest of us ‘good’ people.
It’s like theater: the stage may be breathtaking, but slip backstage and you’ll find the same bare boards and ugly utilitarian structures everywhere.
LikeLike