PLATO'S GUARDIAN

In Steele’s novel, a parole officer stumbles on a web of corruption at work.

Cleveland “Cleve” Ishmael works for the Department of Corrections in Kumhokot County, Pennsylvania; more specifically, he works for the Home Detention Unit, which oversees inmates who’ve been permitted to serve out their sentences in the confines of their own residences. Readers quickly understand that he’s witnessed some sort of grave corruption in his own ranks, and that he felt compelled to discuss it with an authority. However, the details are revealed at a numbingly slow pace over more than 600 pages. Eventually, Cleve notes that he happened upon some irregularities in the casefiles of a fellow parole officer, who mysteriously vanished. As Cleve investigated further, he uncovered a dark tangle of impropriety and crime, which included unspeakable injustices. The book is framed as a transcript of Cleve’s responses to questions asked by a mental health clinician, who’s evaluating his fitness for work, given the clear signs of PTSD he’s exhibiting.The interview is wide-ranging, as the protagonist discusses his family lineage, his childhood, and the death of his parents, all in a style so unhurried that he repeatedly notes the fact that it drifts off-topic. In an afterword, Steele declares his intention to “satirize…hateful, cruel rhetoric and attitudes to the point of ironic caricature.” However, the book delivers no real satire; instead, readers experience the childish crudeness of Cleve, who repeatedly refers to the clinician with epithets such as “dumb fuck” and “numb-nuts,” and to people in his profession as “cock-swallowing thunder-cunts.” Indeed, he seems to delight in using offensive terminology: “I use the term retard a lot, and it upsets you, because maybe you know a retard, and he’s a good guy, or maybe she’s your daughter and you love her, or maybe you’re in love with one.” None of this is particularly dark or funny, which challenges Steele’s announcement that it’s a work of “dark, comedic fiction.” The novel’s singular virtue is its description of the “Democratic-political machine” in Pennsylvania, and its well-documented, labyrinthine corruption.

An overlong novel that’s weighed down by unnecessary digressions.