Title: Chain-Gang All-Stars
Author: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Publisher: Pantheon 2023
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 367
Rating: 3/5 stars
Reading Challenges: Cover Lover - A weapon
Where I Got It: Library
Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker are the stars of the Chain-Gang All-Stars, the cornerstone of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, a highly popular, highly controversial profit-raising program in America’s increasingly dominant private prison industry. It’s the return of the gladiators, and prisoners are competing for the ultimate prize: their freedom.
In CAPE, prisoners travel as Links in Chain-Gangs, competing in death matches before packed arenas with righteous protestors at the gates. Thurwar and Staxxx, both teammates and lovers, are the fan favorites. And if all goes well, Thurwar will be free in just a few matches, a fact she carries as heavily as her lethal hammer. As she prepares to leave her fellow Links, Thurwar considers how she might help preserve their humanity, in defiance of these so-called games. But CAPE’s corporate owners will stop at nothing to protect their status quo, and the obstacles they lay in Thurwar’s path have devastating consequences.
Moving from the Links in the field to the protestors, to the CAPE employees and beyond, Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alliance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country really means from a “new and necessary American voice” (Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review)..
Not going to sugar coat this one, this book was a rough experience. The story opens with extreme violence and does not let up until the end. We get a very important, serious look at racial justice, the prison system, and our attitudes toward punishment. The book has the potential to open some eyes to the path that we are on. And yes, the violence is an important aspect of that. I think that I read this book at the wrong time. I’m in the midst of a depression spiral triggered by life and the state of the world around me. I just found it so difficult to pick this book up on any day. Had to force myself to read it, which is not the attitude I am trying to cultivate with my reading right now. Should be an interesting book club discussion in a few months…
Next up on the TBR pile:
