Chain Gang All Stars

A Novel

De: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Narrado por: Shayna Small, Aaron Goodson, Michael Crouch, Lee Osorio

A NEW YORK TIMES TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK • NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Two top women gladiators fight for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America’s own in this explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Friday Black • LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Elle, Esquire, Chicago Tribune, Lit Hub, Kirkus Reviews

“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so…illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing.”—The Washington Post

“This book is so good. Brutal subject matter, beautiful writing. This one is from the heart.”—Stephen King

She felt their eyes, all those executioners…

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).

©2023 Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (P)2023 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

*Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction*

*One of the New York Times' Top Ten Books of the Year*

*Finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards*

*Longlisted for the New American Voices Awards*

*Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize*

*Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize*

*Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction*

*Longlisted for the Dublin Literary Prize*

Named A Best Book of the Year by:

New York Times Book Review, NPR, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Elle, Esquire, the New York Public Library, Goodreads, Book Riot, Polygon, Financial Times, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, Shelf Awareness, Readers Digest, Electric Literature, WBEZ's Nerdette, The Globe and Mail, The Messenger, Library Journal, and The Northforker

*May Selection for The Today Show’s Read With Jenna Book Club*

*Roxane Gay’s May Selection for the Audacious Book Club*

*A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice*

*New York Times Notable Book of the Year*

“This book will change you!...A masterpiece.”—Jenna Bush Hager, The Today Show’s #ReadWithJenna

“An act of protest…in a voice that belongs only to Adjei-Brenyah, who bends the lurid into the lyrical—pretty words about hideous deeds. Some of his best fight sentences sound as if Joe Rogan had fallen into a trance and assumed the diction and rhythms of Toni Morrison. If you recoil at that unholy fusion, that’s kind of the point; and the author keeps pulling off this shock, page after page…There’s more than a little George Saunders in these high jinks…The novel is a thorough display of authorial control…As the plot careers forward, Adjei-Brenyah uses footnotes as tethers between fiction and reality, reminding us that his gladiatorial farce is just a little tragicomic leap from an extant American horror…The society in which [these characters] live defines them by their worst deeds, but the writer of this novel refuses to.”—New York Times Book Review

“Like Orwell’s 1984 and Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Adjei-Brenyah’s book presents a dystopian vision so upsetting and illuminating that it should permanently shift our understanding of who we are and what we’re capable of doing…So raw and tragic and primal is Chain-Gang All-Stars that despite its futuristic elements, it has the patina of some timeworn epic…Shockingly intimate and moving.”—Washington Post

Smart, thoughtful and well written fiction

This was a masterful way to write abolitionist fiction. I enjoyed the interspersed facts that reflect our current systems. I enjoyed the multiple character perspectives and especially am impressed by the range and depth of characters covered in a short time.

Amazing

This book isn’t linear, so if that rattles you, beware. This was a stunning read. Absolutely amazing, but it is one of those books you really love or really dislike. It leaves no middle ground. It is a story of survival in its most primal form. Good luck. Like it or no, you will definitely feel something after reading this.

Fun and Fast Paced

The best part of the book is all of the characters (main and side) development. Felt as if those side characters could fill their own book. It’s a great commentary of our culture in the US with out beating us over the head with it. Well done.

Best action writing!

Deep, vivid, and unsettling, Also (guiltily?) a helluva a lot of fun. Narration was compelling.

World of the Links

I will never look at a peanut butter and jelly sandwich the same way again.

Powerful till the end

This book is not my typical type book it’s not filled with fun whimsy, but it is filled with the type of romance that you wouldn’t expect to find a type of tenderness hiding in the violence. The writing at times can be slightly preachy, understanding that the story is caught up in a political new ones of our judicial system. The characters are outstanding flushed out. The scene was set. The story was told. It was well worth a listen from start to finish. I was caught up. I highly recommend this book. It would make a great book club book for a Gen X club, but we are no strangers to hypocrisy of the system

Wow

I just want one more chapter! I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

Powerful

This was powerful and riveting. About too many people however to be emotionally invested in characters as i wanted to be. I think this would be a fantastic mini series. I look forward to more by this author

Surprised how much I disliked it

Based on reviews and accolades, I expected to like this book. I figured it was the type of book that would be good on audio. However, the number of characters introduced and the number of storylines confused me at times. The biggest let down was the hokey renderings of the characters, especially the two main characters, along with the redneck and the singing guy.

Wonderful parallel to modern times

This book is far more social commentary than one might assume from the name. It makes profound points about the current prison system and the loophole built into the 13th amendment of the US constitution.
With all of that said the plot line is solid. 4 stars because a few of the characters kind of meld into the same voice and for the off putting ambiguous ending.