“There’s blood on every piece of here.”
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars (Pantheon Books 2023) has been compared to The Hunger Games meets Gladiator meets Squid Games, and it will fuck you up. It’s a gory, bloodbath to the bitter end with a piercing sneer of a look at the US penal system that does not flinch for 359 pages. (I know there are folks who do not wish to believe that our justice system is far from fair and just, and there are folks who believe that criminals deserve every lick of cruel and inhumane treatment they receive within our prisons. Those folks will either not read this novel or read this novel for pure entertainment & enjoyment. Much like the novel’s spectators who cheer on the death matches, the readers run the risk of being active participants.)
Set in the future, the novel envisions a US where criminals are “given the option” to join CAPE, Criminal Action Penal Entertainment. As part of CAPE, they join a chain gang and compete in death matches before roaring crowds. Everything is televised, including private moments and the Marches that are just as violent if not more than the death matches. People cheer on their favorites as CAPE has become America’s favorite live-action sport. With each victory, the convict moves up the link – hoping to reach “high freed,” which is the promise of the program. Only one person has ever been high freed, and that person was a plant to prove it could be done. The majority of those who sign up for CAPE are “low freed,” and die on the battlefield, on a March, or at the hands of their own chain.
The heart of the novel, and what carries the main plot, is Thurwar and Staxxx. Lovers on the same chain who are beasts on the battlefield, they are crowd favorites. Thurwar is mere fights away from being high freed, and she’d done it on her own. But the rules for the new season will change – bringing a devastating blow the chain, Thurwar and Staxxx, all in the name of entertainment.
The Links play a part and put on a show, embracing a persona that crowds love so that they can receive more sponsorships and earn more blood points. Like caged animals, they are forced to perform.
There are Links on the chains who are innocent. Links who are not mentally sound. Links who have been sexually assaulted in prison, starved, kept in solitary for 23 hours of a day, and “Influenced” – a cruel and extremely painful form of torture. There are Links who were not allowed to talk without being punished. Links who’ve forgotten their names. And America watches with glee as they rip each other apart.
In addition to following the Links and giving us their stories before incarceration and before CAPE, the novel also touches on individuals who work for the program, who watch the program, who are protesting the program, and who have had family die in the program.
Bathed in blood, Chain-Gang All-Stars shines a spotlight on the greedy elite, systemic racism, and mass incarceration. And instead of the crimes against humanity being committed behind bars, they happen in full view for the paying public. Both a kick in the gut and jagged edged mirror – this novel leaves a mark.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 