Chain Gang All Stars

Starred review from March 6, 2023
Bestseller Adjei-Brenyah sets his breathtaking and pulse-pounding debut novel (after the short story collection Friday Black) in a dystopian alternate U.S. where people incarcerated in an expansive private prison system have the option to fight for their freedom in gladiator-style death matches. Fighters who partake in the Chain-Gang All-Stars operation can rise to fame and notoriety, a crucial profit-driving component for those who control CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment. Among these superstars are fighters Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, who have made names for themselves as undefeated champions and “Links,” or teammates in a Chain-Gang. As Thurwar takes a step closer to freedom one match at a time, however, she begins to worry about leaving Hamara and her other Links behind. Through this brutal, fight-scene-studded story, the author delivers insightful critiques of the prison-industrial complex, capitalism, and the ways in which Hollywood and celebrity culture exploit Black talent. Both the political allegory and the edge-of-your-seat action work beautifully. Readers will be wowed. Agent: Meredith Kaffel Simonoff, Gernert Co.

Starred review from June 16, 2023

DEBUT Adjei-Brenyah's propulsive debut novel (after the short story collection Friday Black) introduces a viciously dystopian alternate United States, pitting the public's insatiable appetite for violent sports against individuals caught in the web of the prison industrial complex. In this chillingly familiar world, incarcerated individuals are abused to such an extent that they agree to join the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, becoming gladiators and engaging in televised death matches. Two fan favorites, Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, make headlines, captivating viewers with their formidable battle skills and their tender relationship off the field. Thurwar is two matches away from freedom, and Staxxx will soon attain the rank of Colossal, but both know that nothing is certain. The affecting portraits of Thurwar and Staxxx are augmented with stories of other incarcerated people, from Hendrix "Scorpion Singer" Young, who fights so that his voice can be heard, to Simon J. Craft, whose last shred of humanity is destroyed through torture. Adjei-Brenyah offers a piercing commentary on the privatization of prisons, disparate treatment of BIPOC individuals within the penal system, and the ghoulish celebration of televised pain. VERDICT An unforgettable book reverberating with alarming truths and providing an uncomfortable look at an all-too-imaginable future.--Sarah Hashimoto

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 15, 2023
An acerbic, poignant, and, at times, alarmingly pertinent dystopian novel ravages two malign institutions: one involving privately owned prisons, the other feeding America's addiction to violent sports. In his debut short story collection, Friday Black (2018), Adjei-Brenyah displayed a prodigious flair for deadpan satiric narratives set in alternate realities that often seem uncomfortably close to our own, especially regarding race and class divisions. With his first novel, he proves he can sustain his outrage, imagination, wit, and compassion for a deeper dive into the darker reaches of the American soul. As with the earlier stories, the novel is set not in the future but in a warped vision of the present in which a private consortium called Criminal Action Penal Entertainment produces duels to the death between convicted murderers before packed arenas and TV cameras. CAPE's two most charismatic and successful gladiators are women: Loretta Thurwar and Hamara Stacker, aka Hurricane Staxxx, who are also lovers. Staxxx, who tends to weep copiously after each bloody victory, is dreading the ever nearer day when Loretta will earn her freedom, having survived and triumphed with CAPE for three years under the terms established for "clemency, commutation of sentence, or a full pardon" under the Rightful Choice Act. Protestors show up outside every CAPE death match to protest that law and the whole penal system in an all-out movement to repeal it. Meanwhile, CAPE's corporate masters tighten their hold on the status quo (and keep their TV ratings up) as Loretta struggles against mounting odds to help Staxxx and other gladiators of varied races and genders achieve relative dignity within their imprisonment. Adjei-Brenyah displays his impressive range of tone and voice as he deftly manipulates several points of view through shifting time periods; all the while, he maintains control over the elements of his dreaded alternate America, using footnotes and asides to elaborate on the laws and customs of this world but also making direct and similarly detailed connections to the real-life, present-day state of the nation's mass incarceration system with its brutalities and injustices. It is an up-to-the-minute j'accuse that speaks to the eternal question of what it truly means to be free. And human. Imagine The Hunger Games refashioned into a rowdy, profane, and indignant blues shout at full blast.

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Starred review from May 1, 2023
Adjei-Brenyah's stellar, stupendous story collection, Friday Black (2018), could have been mere prelude to the relentlessly vicious horror of his first novel. In a not-so-unfamiliar alternate America, prisoners convicted of violent crimes are coerced and tortured into joining CAPE--Criminal Action Penal Entertainment--for an almost impossible chance at freedom. Participants become Links in strategically created Chain-Gangs; survival means slaughtering their way through death matches, earning Blood Points. While the controlling corporations rake in the blood money, the public, even young children, cannot get enough. Two of the most beloved Chain-Gang All-Stars are Loretta Thurwar and Hurricane Staxx, both so close to, yet still so far from, getting out. What might seem to be a dystopian nightmare is even more terrifying because Adjei-Brenyah brilliantly broadcasts such irrefutable truths as the U.S. having the world's highest rate of incarceration, with disproportionate numbers of Black and POC prisoners. His chilling footnotes shrewdly interrupt his fiction with real names and stark statistics, exposing racism, inequity, corruption, suicide, and abuse. Prison privatization is already a high-profit industry, as is celebrated, legalized fighting (boxing, MMA, wrestling). Adjei-Brenyah's reality-adjacent tale could ultimately, terrifyingly, prove prescient. Given the rampant, explicit brutality, all should heed a character's warning, "I'll tell you and I can't untell you, you understand?"HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The resounding success of Adjei-Brenyah's first book has his second avidly touted as a most anticipated title of the year.

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