To be quite honest, I'd never heard of this book before I went looking for NYRB titles to read. Another NYRB title I'd read earlier, Hard Rain Falling, by Don Carpenter, also dealt with life in prison, but it examines the causes of why the main characters went to prison, what happened to them while they were there, and then what happened after they were released. Unlike that novel, the action in On the Yard occurs nearly completely within prison walls, and the story is told through the voices of a group of prisoners as well as by people who work there. As a matter of fact, the author, Malcolm Braly, had written three earlier novels while incarcerated, then started On the Yard while doing a stint at San Quentin. He had to do it in secret since it was based on his own experience and he was threatened with revocation of parole if he continued to write it. Its publication was put off until much later, according to Howard Bruce Franklin, author of Prison Writings in 20th Century America, after he was actually off parole. The characters drive this novel -- the author often floats from character to character, as noted by Jonathan Lethem, who provides the book's introduction:"...moving...through the minds and moments of dozens of characters, some recurrently, some only for a sole brief visitation which nearly always proves definitive. Three or four of these are into the minds of the prison's keepers, including that of the morose, long-enduring Warden. The rest are a broad array of prisoners, some "hardened" repeaters, some newly arrived at San Quentin, some floating in between and trying to measure the rightness and permanence of their placement inside those walls."Lethem's assessment is quite accurate. How these people deal with the stultifying sameness that is their life day after day is one of the main themes of this novel. For example, there's Billy Oberholster (aka Chilly Willy), imprisoned for several armed robberies, who made his way to the top of the food chain so to speak on the inside by being at the head of several operations: he runs a usurious cigarette loan business, has the corner on nasal inhalants (which the prisoners use to get high on amphetamine sulphate), and runs a tidy black-market business that offers him a great many advantages while serving out his time. His influence is spread everywhere, down to his ability to maintain a cell with no roomies. He is the king of the yard - and uses others for his dirty work, keeping his hands clean. He counts among his friends Society Red and Nunn, a repeater back only after half a year of freedom. Then there's Stick, a sort of Neo-Nazi who survives through creating scenarios in his head with himself as the centerpiece -- constantly staging "new myths" in which he plays the major part, imagining himself as vampire and deliverer. Another most interesting character is Lorin -- an intelligent 22 year-old, in for stealing a car, spending his time trying to fend off the attention of another inmate who has a thing about shoes. When he's not dreaming about Kim Novak, Lorin works on his poetry writing. One of the most interesting characters is Paul Juleson, who's been incarcerated for the murder of his wife, and who wants nothing more than to be left on his own, often living in favorite fantasies, trying to steer cleer of the other inmates, "watching the animals from a distance and taking every precaution necessary to keep free of them in all essential ways." He spends his days mostly reading and visiting the library on his lunch break; the only person on the outside who still keeps in contact with him is his aunt, who sends him $5.00 each year on his birthday. When Juleson decides to spend his not-yet-received birthday cash on cigarettes, he runs afoul of Chilly Willy when the money fails to arrive, leading to one of the major plots that runs throughout the novel. Each character's worst points are carefully revealed rather than soft soaped, yet the author provides them with a fair amount of points with which the reader finds him or herself showing some empathy -- including those outside cell bars: the psychologists, guards and even the warden and his servant. For readers who are more interested in plot, there are several stories at work that will keep you actively engrossed in the story. But it is Braly's characters, each brought to life (if even only for a few lines in some cases) that will draw the reader's attention on a deeper level. While its content may seem tame to modern readers, considering what goes on in today's prisons, On the Yard is still a solid read. Kurt Vonnegut's blurb on the back cover notes that this book is "Surely the great American prison novel." In my case, it would be difficult to agree with his statement since I don't have a lot of reading experience in that area, but I did find On the Yard to be quite engrossing once the cast of characters was introduced. It seemed a bit slow at first (as character-driven novels often can be), but I started the getting the picture of what happens within the prison walls (how the hierarchies play out, the interplay between prison officials and the prisoners, and among the prisoners themselves), I couldn't put this book down. The author, Malcolm Braly, spent a large part of his life behind bars in different prisons, so he knows what he's talking about and this is exemplified in the book's realistic and gritty tone. Obviously, the subject matter might not be for everyone, but it is one of those novels that you won't soon forget after putting down, not just because of the story, but because of the writing and Braly's mastery of characterization.
A phenomenal book by a master storyteller.As some others have said, you do need to have patience to get through the first 1/3 of the book. You also need to be open-minded enough to understand that the prison world is its own eco-system. It ingests its victims, chews them up and very rarely ever lets them go.If you can get past the vulgar juvenile language used by the inmates and can see past the sexual references it becomes quite clear that it has more to do with the fact that the system has moulded its inhabitants into the people they become. This is a place for living out your punishment, not rehabilitating you into a good citizen.What is fascinating is the way that Braly expertly weaves in and out of the heads of so many characters. It's a process that can easily confuse readers or worse, give them reading whiplash, but Braly does it so deftly, like a point-of-view ghost who travels from person-to-person, staying just long enough to catch the scene before hopping onto their next ride.A great book about a world and a time I would otherwise never know. Recommended for adventurous and fearless readers.
What do You think about On The Yard (2002)?
A powerful and compelling piece of work. Its the tale of a handful of individuals' entwined fates, all connected by them being in prison. Braly himself is an ex con so it is authentic feeling but there is a lot more than this. Braly reveals the monotony as well as the camaraderie and humor beyond the grim, bleak reality of prison life as he experienced it. He penetrates deep inside his characters' heads, giving us access to (the necessarily active) inner lives of the cons and the fantasies, memories and trains of thought there.
—Howard
"On the Yard," like a boxer who finds his rhythm in the later rounds, starts off on shaky footing but really comes through in the end. In his introduction to Braly's novel, Jonathan Lethem compares the narrative's shifting point-of-view to both an audition process and to the hesitation cuts of a suicide. Fortunately, this process isn't indefinite, and the work isn't killed by its early attempts. Grimy realism mixes with hopeless dreams behind the walls. None of it feels contrived, and while a couple aspects seem outrageous, they don't undermine the story's impact. This ain't no "Shawshank Redemption," so if you're looking for a triumph of the spirit, move on. "On the Yard" is a novel about people imprisoned by more than just bars and bricks; they are trapped by love, duty, rage, addiction, and madness. They are serving life sentences as human beings. That, more than anything, is the Big Bitch--no one gets out alive.
—Geoff Hyatt
