Book review of Falconer by John Cheever

Published in 1975, Falconer is timeless with its story about a man struggling to retain his core while imprisoned for murder. This inmate--Farragut--is immediately seen as more educated than his fellow prisoners, more travelled, more introspective. But he is also a drug addict, which at times seems contrary to his character. As Farragut descends further into an inmate's life, though, we see that his flaw of being an addict has underlined his entire adult life, and that his acceptance of this flaw explains how he is so readily drawn into the dark recesses of homosexuality within the prison walls.

Cheever's brilliance shines through this otherwise dark story, especially through Farragut's flashbacks to life outside the walls: "The contrite geometry of grass-cutting pleased him. To cut the grass one followed the contour of the land. To study the contour of the land-to read it as one did on skis-was to study and read the contour of the neighborhood, the county, the state, the continent, the planet, and to study and read the contour of the planet was to study and read the nature of the winds as his old father had done, sailing catboats and kites. Some oneness was invlved, some contentment."

Falconer earned Cheever the Pulitzer Prize, and after reading this novel, I am struck by his skill with words and by his ability to get inside a character's head, to make the reader truly feel empathy for Farragut and his situation.