On the Yard

A major American novel, and arguably the finest work of literature ever to emerge from a US prison, On the Yard is a book of penetrating psychological realism in which Malcolm Braly paints an unforgettable picture of the complex and frightening world of the penitentiary. At its center are the violently intertwined stories of Chilly Willy, in trouble with the law from his earliest years and now the head of the prison's flourishing black market in drugs and sex, and of Paul, wracked with guilt for the murder of his wife and desperate for some kind of redemption. At once brutal and tender, clear-eyed and rueful, On the Yard presents the penitentiary not as an exotic location, an exception to everyday reality, but as an ordinary place, one every reader will recognize, American to the core.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: New York Review of Books
Published: 01/31/2002
ISBN: 9780940322967
Pages: 368
Weight: 0.81lbs
Size: 8.10h x 5.04w x 1.00d

Review Citations: PW Notes and Reprints 01/28/2002 pg. 273
Publishers Weekly 01/28/2002