The Wing Orderly's Tales

November 15, 2016

While the individual pieces here have been published as stand-alone stories, and all could be read that way, this work from distinguished Irish writer Gebler (The Dead Eight) forms a cohesive and absorbing whole. Harold "Chalky" Chalkman is doing 12 years for assault in Her Majesty's Prison Loanend, where he works as an orderly, a job that assures him certain privileges and a sense of power in the rigidly authoritarian and hierarchical prison world. Chalky is described in his record as intelligent, manipulative, violent, and selfish. He's also coolly observant, carefully portraying inmates like Eskimo, killed because he goes up against the Evil Twins sitting at the top of the prison heap, or a man convicted of owning child pornography viciously ostracized from a creative writing class. Throughout, Chalky stays aloof as the best protection. VERDICT By using language that's direct but understated, Gebler successfully depicts the bleak, violent prison world. Not just for readers of literary fiction.

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