Chain Gang All Stars

A Novel

By: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Narrated by: 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

Critic reviews

*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

Stunning

This was a book unlike any I have read. I was completely lost and immersed in the world of the Chains, and I will be thinking about this for a long, long time.

She’s a tear at the end.

A horrible system that encourages us to question how we use people in the prison system.

I loved this book!

Great characters and excellent narration. The blend of facts and politics was well done. Loved it!

Entertaining and thought provoking

Story sucked me in. Enjoyed the various narrators’ performances. The subject matter and perspective on it left an impression (social injustice, incarceration, violence as entertainment).

Humanity

Terrific topic, character development with intricacies of hate and greed, no one’s humanity was ever forgotten

Everything

I couldn’t wait to listen to this book everyday the connections in this story were amazing

It made me rethink my stance on prison and the death penalty. Not saying it changed me, but I had to revisit.

Overall I liked the story and found it hard to put down. I thought the bits of “facts” mentioned were interesting, but had to remind myself it was fiction. For example, it mentioned a law in 1996 (?) that prohibited people convicted of domestic violence from owning weapons and that it doesn’t apply to police or military. I don’t know about police, but I know that standard applies to military via the Lautenberg Amendment.

BRAVO

Phenomenal. Thought provoking, dynamic and original. One of my favorite audiobooks of 2024. A truly outstanding novel.

Eye opening

it was a little hard to get into with a different narrative style than I am used to . but once I picked up the rhythm it was great. Thought provoking.

I'm not entirely sure what I listened to

I had a hard time getting through the book. I'm not entirely sure exactly why that is, but it must be that I wasn't truly engaged by it. There are hard truths in the book mixed with various storylines. Ultimately, I don't think it worked for me.