‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ a stellar book that shouldn’t be overlooked
You can’t read all the books.
You can’t even read all the books you want to read, even if you’re someone like me who is lucky enough to be able to say that reading books is a professional obligation. As I hope readers know, I take my responsibility to recommend books to those who request them very seriously. Part of that seriousness is to try to recommend books that people otherwise might not discover for themselves.
This means I often intentionally don’t read books lots of other people have read. Usually these are books that I’m sure are quite good and that I would enjoy, but which also are going to get on the radar of any person who considers themselves a reader.
A while back I confessed that this is why I had never read a word of Amor Towles, eliciting weeks of emails from folks telling me that I was missing out on a sublime experience (or two).
I know! I don’t know what to tell you. A man’s got to have his principles.
These principles are why you also won’t find me reading recent releases with broad appeal such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Pulitzer-winning “Demon Copperhead” or Abraham Verghese’s “The Covenant of Water,” or hardly any book selected by Oprah, Reese or Jenna for their book clubs, unless I’ve read it prior to the selection being announced.
These principles are why, until recently, I had not read “Chain-Gang All-Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The book was selected as part of Jenna Bush’s Today Show Book Club, and even though I was an admirer of Adjei-Brenyah’s previous book, the story collection, “Friday Black,” I figured this was a book that did not need me.
Obviously, it doesn’t need me to find an audience of passionate readers, but when it was selected as one of the competitors for the forthcoming Tournament of Books, for which I am one of the color commentators, I figured I should read it.
Holy schnikes! “Chain-Gang All-Stars” is a tour de force at the conceptual, character, plot and action level. It is part near-future quasi-apocalypse novel, part high-octane thriller, part effecting emotional tear-jerker, part civil rights lesson. What a shame it would be if I hadn’t read this book.
In Adjei-Brenyah’s future United States, incarcerated people can choose to compete in “extreme action sports,” essentially gladiatorial contests to the death against other incarcerated people. Over time, competitors can level up, getting new weapons, better treatment and achieving serious fame as their lives are captured by hovering drone cameras monitoring them every waking moment. If you survive three years on the circuit you are given your freedom.
The novel centers on the story of Loretta Thurwar, a competitor who is only two weeks from being freed, needing just a couple final victories for release. Also part of Thurwar’s chain is Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker,” perhaps the second most formidable fighter in the competition and Thurwar’s lover, as well as possible future rival. Orbiting this center are stories of fans, protesters, and the prison and entertainment
corporations that fuel the bloodsport.
Adjei-Brenyah makes the return of gladiatorial combat seem so matter-of-fact plausible as part of a culture that finds ways to exploit and monetize every aspect of our society, a dread started to creep into me as I read it and it seemed as if a similar real-life scenario is inevitable.
It’s not a book for everyone. The violence is as cruel as violence can be, but that’s part of the point.
An amazing book I almost missed.