Barker House

"HERE is a voice to listen to! Moloney's voice is as true as a voice can be. Concise, with the right details rendered perfectly, these sentences come to the reader with marvelous straight forwardness, clean as a bone."--Elizabeth Strout

Olive Kitteridge meets The Mars Room in this powerfully unsentimental work of fiction--a portrait of nine lives behind the concrete walls of a New Hampshire jail.

David Moloney's Barker House follows the story of nine unforgettable New Hampshire correctional officers over the course of one year on the job. While veteran guards get by on what they consider survival strategies--including sadistic power-mongering and obsessive voyeurism--two rookies, including the only female officer on her shift, develop their own tactics for facing "the system." Tracking their subtly intertwined lives, Barker House reveals the precarious world of the jailers, coming to a head when the unexpected death of one in their ranks brings them together.

Timely and universal, this masterfully crafted debut adds a new layer to discussions of America's criminal justice system, and introduces a brilliant young literary talent.