kingkong's review against another edition
5.0
The moral of this book is dont fall in love with a queen
escapegrace's review against another edition
5.0
I could not stop talking about how much I was enjoying this book. I'm sure people tired of my "It's Oz in a book!" refrain, but it is. The characters in this 1967 prison novel are intriguingly complex, and I seriously cannot remember a more gripping climax to a fiction narrative. I was bent on writing a film adaptation, but I see it's already been done. Remake perhaps?
christinalepre's review against another edition
4.0
Picked this up on a whim during my first (and only) trip the Strand last summer. Took a little bit to get into this, but about 20 pages in, I was completely engrossed in the world of this prison. Braly, who spent much of his life behind bars and started writing this book while incarcerated, offers a slate of well-developed characters, presenting each of them with empathy while not holding back any of their ugliness or violence. The way he talks about homosexuality is definitely of its time, and in keeping with the uber-masculine culture of a men's prison, but I also found it surprisingly humane and complex. The plot is fairly loose, but I enjoyed this quite a bit. My one complaint is that a couple of characters he gives time to at the book's start fall away and are never really mentioned again. I wanted to know what happened to Lorin, and more about what Nunn's deal was.
jeremiah's review
On the Yard is correctional facility Shakespeare--a novel at once limited by prison walls, yet inside the head, the heart, and the hands the reader slams on the table in disbelief in light of its twists and turns. Here Braly is on to a sort of desiccating lucidity, and I doubt I'll come across another novel with such power.
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