It's a world that most people never enter willingly - the American penal institution - yet the men and women of David Moloney's Barker House enter the walls of this New Hampshire prison by choice day in and day out. Theirs are the only free faces the inmates of the Barker House see on a regular basis. The people tasked with trying to bring order to chaos in an environment that thrives on anarchy and dysfunction. Theirs is a thankless job, but someone has got to do it. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the correctional officers of the Barker House prison.
David Moloney cracks open the dark and dingy world of corrections in his debut novel Barker House, published in April 2020. Moloney, a former correctional officer for the state of New Hampshire, is just writing what he knows ... and write he does well. Barker House is a novel of unsettling vignettes; little darkened glimpses into the personal and professional lives of correctional officers. Told in short snippets, each story focuses on a Barker House CO and his or her unit assignment and what goes on there. These stories are everything that you would expect in a novel about corrections and all the things that you wouldn't at the same time. Moloney's descriptions of life behind the bars and barbed wire is abrupt and abrasive, the inmates crude and crass. But perhaps the most revealing and voyeuristic aspect of this novel is not to be found in the actual corrections work, but in the correctional officers themselves.
Moloney's Barker House correctional officers are the men and women who will forever be looked down upon both by society and the inmates they supervise as being not good enough to be a "real cop." They are the bottom feeders of the justice system, and their lives are both ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Barker House is comprised of a motley crew of employees, who for whatever reason, decided that keeping watch over society's degenerates was their best option in life. Or not. Because scattered among this group of people are feelings of resentment and loss; no sense of pride or accomplishment; a collection of lost and unhappy souls.
The Barker House COs are a mixed bag of good and bad; dirty and decent; satisfied and hapless. There are those who get their kicks off of making life for the inmates a living hell, denying them of any little dignities they may have left, and invading the small amount of space and privacy they have. There are others who turn a blind eye to inmate misdeeds and schemes, hoping that if they have the inmates' backs, the inmates will remember and someday have theirs. And then there are those who are criminals themselves, just as guilty as the inmates they supervise and look down upon.
Barker House is not an uplifting book, but you didn't expect it to be, did you? No, this novel is as revelatory as it is addictive, dredging up all the uncomfortable thoughts and feelings that we keep pushed down and suppressed from view for fear of judgment. This book is raw and honest - an unflinching, unflattering portrayal of a job no one wants to do, but must be done. I anticipate it to be one of the more unique and thought-provoking novels of the year. Barker House comes highly recommended for lovers of literary fiction - Moloney has a way with words, twisting up everything grotesque and ugly, and shaping it into something hauntingly beautiful to while away the hours.
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Rating: ***** Stars (I loved it) Reviewer: Brooke, Public Relations Librarian
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GENRE: Literary Fiction; Multiple Perspectives THEME: Life on the Inside (These books offer a raw view of prison life, often by authors who have experienced lockup firsthand.) WRITING STYLE: Gritty; Richly Detailed; Spare; Stylistically Complex; Well-Crafted Dialogue CHARACTER: Complex TONE: Bleak; Haunting LOCATION: New Hampshire SUBJECT: Correctional Institutions; Correctional Personnel; Corrections; Criminal Justice System; Guards; Imprisonment; Prisoners; Women Correctional Personnel
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