Falconer by John Cheever: book review

Falconer (1977, edition 1992) is set in fictional Falconer State Penitentiary in America in the 1970s.

Heroin-addicted, middle-class, married college professor Ezekiel Farragut is imprisoned for killing his brother. His first visitor is his upper-class wife. She asks, ‘What do you find to talk about with these people?’ This book, basically, is about that.

At only half-full, there are twenty men in cell-block F. There’s nothing happening there, except a lot of talking. The monotony is tedius. One prisoner, Chicken Number Two, talks about ‘his brilliant career as a jewel thief’ and talks more than most in his sleep. The inmates talk about their visitors and each other.

Farrugut lies anxiously in bed, wondering whether he is going to die from drug withdrawal or whether he will be murdered. But mainly, it’s the monotony that gets to him—until he befriends Jody, a 32-year-old fellow prisoner. But eventually, even Jody’s conversations become monotonous.

Despite Farragut’s monotonous life, this novel is far from that, due to Cheever’s skilful writing that turns the story into a redemptive, psyschological prison drama. This best-selling novel is noted also for its ending, which, of course, is great.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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