Hadrian's Walls by Draper, Robert - 1999

New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Fine 1999. Paperback. Fresh softcov advance prtg, 1 dented, 1 curled corner; not written-in, underlined, clearance or discard. Usually mails within 12 hours. Hadrian Coleman, the protagonist of Robert Draper's debut novel, Hadrian's Walls, is that rare criminal who really is innocent. Not of murder (he's killed twice in self-defense) , but of the further transgression of succumbing to callousness. For, despite the careful depiction of life in Shepherdsville, a mythical East Texas town whose sustaining institution is the state penitentiary, the true geography of Draper's novel is the human heart, where guilt, retribution, and love meld so confusedly that it becomes difficult to discern what confines us and what we choose to keep locked away. Hadrian's foil and lifelong friend is Sonny Hope, the blustery and conniving prison director. In one of the book's many ironies, Sonny owes more than a slight portion of his success to Hadrian, who, while committing a defensible killing at age 15, leaves Sonny's character unsullied--and blow; 1.50 x 9.75 x 6.50; 326 pages .