Book Review: Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adeji-Brenya

‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ is a dystopian novel by Nana Kwame Adeji-Brenya. It was published in 2023.

This is a split narrative novel and tells the story of prison overpopulation, the way the incarcerated effectively do slave labour, an overpowered control state that was once the USA, and a series of extreme fights to the death that are televised for the masses to livestream like football matches.

These fights to the death are part of a programme called CAPE: Criminal Action Penal Entertainment, where multiple people from the same prison, all serving either 25+ year sentences, or would have been sent to Death Row, are given a chance of release. They just have to survive three years on a circuit of killing matches, known as Chain-Gang All-Stars.

This book had an incredible sense of character voice. Throughout the book, we get to know several characters well. We learn the way each of our main characters thinks, and become intimately acquainted with Loretta Thurwar, a black woman who has been on the circuit of Chain Gang All Stars for almost three years, and thus, has almost achieved the status of High Freed, wherein which, she would be just the second person to complete the three-year circuit of executing fellow prisoners with the hope of surviving and being allowed back into society.

Thurwar is one of three characters we learn about that were close to High Freed at the same period of time, and on the same Chain: Thurwar, Staxxx, and Sunset Harkless, who had achieved the penultimate rank in the circuit, Colossal. Though, at the start of the story, Sun has just been murdered by one of his fellow Links on the chain.

During the story we are shown the extent of Thurwar and Staxxx’s relationship, where the two women are lovers and extremely close, there is an undertsanding that while Thurwar may be completely committed to Staxxx, Staxxx still seeks comfort from sleeping with others who may offer her a different form of comfort from what Thurwar can.

We also learn that soon, the Game will change, and in the next season, just a few death matches away, there will no longer be able to be two Colossal ranked Links on the same Chain, and so, the first match of the upcoming season will be between Thurwar and her lover.

We learn through both Thurwar and Staxxx’s narration that the two of them, along with Sunset had many comforts through their brand sponsorships and Blood Points, allowing them access to high-quality meals, comfortable bedding, tents, hot running water, iconic weapons, and footage of upcoming opponents, allowing them to continue succeeding. However, Thurwar and Staxxx are also determined to ensure their Chain is an effective space like a family, where there is trust and support. They don’t want to curate a dangerous space on the circuit where Links have to fear being killed in their sleep, and can trust their teammates to have their backs if they have to participate in fights on the roads between their stadium matches. They want the Sing-Attica-Sing Chain, a Chain that consists of prisoners from two different prisons that merged together, thus bringing Thurwar, Sunset, and later Staxxx, together, to be secure when Thurwar achieves High Freed status.

Another one of the main characters in this book is Hendrix Young, a black man who served a number of years working on a meat preparation line as part of his sentence, in enforced silence, where, if he spoke, he would be electrocuted via a collar around his neck. During an accident on the meat line, Hendrix is injured and loses an arm. Knowing he has little chance of surviving life on the meat line with his disability, Hendrix joins the circuit. His voice, unlike Loretta’s has a cynical tone. He is apprehensive in his chain, and knows that he isn’t as secure in his position.

Hendrix’s POV was signifcantly different from Thurwar’s. He narrates as if he were speaking aloud, with missing words like he’s just echoing his thoughts. It doesn’t have the same grammar or the same reverence that Thurwar narrates with. Instead, Hendrix’s chapters allow readers to understand what life is like in an insecure Chain, where he must co-exist as a disabled black man among company that would be willing to kill him in his sleep, and worse still, he must share his space with white supremacists like the Eraser triplets. In one of his chapters, Hendrix describes them as:

“The Erasers a triplet of skinheads. An actual brother, brother, brother briught on the same crime. They don’t talk much to anybody not white, but their skin screams their feelings loud. They got swastikas on them like some God, the chef of all meant to sprinkle a pinch of hate and the cap fell open and they got stuck with a bucketload.”

Later, Hendrix describes the Erasers as “Ku, Klux, and Klan”, which genuinely was so out of pocket I snorted out loud and laughed. It was a perfect way to describe them, and exceptionally witty, and yet it was written with all the brazen confidence that makes it read like Hendrix has acknowledged them as that many times before in his head. It was truly a masterful choice of words and really helped cement Hendrix in my head.

Another character in this book that broke my heart was Simon J. Craft, who joins Hendrix’s Chain after one of the members was killed. Prior to joining the circuit, he was being tortured in solitary confinement without restriction by the highest ranking officers in the prison. He was locked in perpetual silence, in the company of rats that are driven mad by the darkness that they seek solace in suicide by slamming their tiny bodies into the walls of his cell. Simon J. Craft is “Influenced” using state issue technology that is effectively a torture device in place to cause immense pain and force prisoners to obey the wardens. He is subject to this kind of torture consistently, and when he is let out of solitary at the disgression of the wardens, to paticipate in a secret brawl, Simon kills the man with extreme violence. He is a husk of a man, and consents to participate in Chain Gang All Stars, where upon joining his new Chain, actively slaughters everyone with feral, animalistic violence. He is only stopped when Hendrix tells him to, addressing him by name and speaking a command like a warden may have done.

Despite Simon not being sound of mind, Hendrix takes him under his wing, and as the only two members of their Chain, he tries to get to know Simon as best as he can. They form a rapport, but it is unintentially more like master and pet, with Simon doing as Hendrix instructs.

This book was incredible. Not only did the way the book was constructed masterfully demonstrate a semi-linear narrative like a consumer flicking through past seasons of their favourite shows, looking for the best bits, but the way each character stepped off the page was incredible and poignant. I found myself dreading the doubles match-up between Thurwar and Staxxx against Hendrix and Simon J. Craft, because you want all four characters to survive, even though, you know, one, at best, will make it to the end of the book.

I really enjoyed this book. I think it is a poignant and important story to read, especially in the current socio-political climate, where the inequalities seem vaster. I feel like this book truly paints a harrowing and yet, understandable and imaginable scenario for the Western world, especially in countries where the death penalty can still be sentenced on to guilty criminals. where overpopulation in the penal system could result in this.

This book did a fantastic job in establishing how, with a few cameras, extreme violence, and reality TV glitz and glam, even the act of fighting to the death could become something viewers could be desensitised to, and thus forget that the people on their screens are actual human beings.