Chain Gang All-Stars

A critical, yet kind review. Spoilers, obviously

Chain Gang All-Stars as a concept was the perfect amount of ambitious. It had the rumblings of a hit: Black Author, social commentary, speculative fiction¹ that’s barely a jump from our current reality. I was more than excited to enjoy myself, and I did, just not as much as I’d have liked.

Genres are suggestions, not immutable and Nana seemed to embrace that ethos with the creative liberties he took not just with his writing, but the very format of the text.

There’s omniscient 3rd person narration typical of fiction novels throughout with frequent footnotes that are frankly, oversized. They bloated the page and provided a level of detail that exceeds exposition (which I’m not a big fan of as is), and borders non fiction educational materials. It was giving McGraw Hill.

I suppose one could argue the intent was to imply Chain Gangs mythology is fact in another dimension by presenting it to the audience as a textbook accompaniment of sorts, if that is the case I’d say it was ill advised; one of the biggest hurdles I had following the story came from the footnotes disrupting the connection I attempted to build to our characters. If I look a little deeper, I’d just as easily believe it was to ensure that readers understood how little mythology existed considering he’s taking a sharp stab at the current violent, vengeful carceral state and Prison Industrial Complex. It all felt rooted in some anxious paternalism, like there was genuine concern the audiences couldn’t keep up or orient themselves to the world without more guiding hands than I’d expect or welcome.

In the midst of an anti-intellectualism crisis, I find myself increasingly more concerned with the expectations authors have of their audiences coloring how they choose to present stories to us. The shortened attention spans and thirst for quippy one liners primed for TikTok virality have publicized the well known publishing secret that you don’t need your readers to get analytical, you just need them to get… the book, of course.

In a world of “it’s not that deep” and “the curtains are just blue”, I’m left weary of books that don’t insist their readers work their brain much and, don’t even give them an opportunity to. In the case of Chain Gang, it felt like every story progression insisted that the audience couldn’t take enough away from the dialogue and worldbuilding that wasn’t explicitly stated or further clarified in the footnotes. Sometimes less is more and despite the route taken, Nana does “less” well.

Perhaps what’s most frustrating about the oversized exposition nearly every chapter is how capable Adjei-Brenyah proved he could set the scene proficiently in few words. I enjoyed his writing most in the ring, the combat and subsequent deaths read like a dream because he said just enough, every time.

One of my favorite examples takes place in Staxx’ first on page fight against Barry “Rave Bear” Harris after she’s amputated his leg and he realizes how much he’s been got.

“Bears face was in the dirt, but his arms were still swinging, still holding his bats, up, down, up, down, as though he were trying to swim on solid earth.” […]

“Shit,” Barry said.

This was a man who wanted to live, who found yielding to others inconceivable. He’d always go down with a fight because maybe, just maybe, sheer will can spare him except that’s untrue this time. The lesson in humility costs him his life.

The following page we read a biography and prison origin story about Barry that felt redundant and this issue spawns again and again. In an attempt to humanize these characters, Nana seems to write away the desire to see them, I don’t get to want to know more because damn near everything has been said.

These character’s world revolves around the CAPE², the program that created this televised gladatorial system, and the most insightful exchanges we see revolve around its central conflict: will I survive? Do I deserve to? There’s intimacy within the dread and fears all these characters have to navigate, even when they appear not to be affected. How they kill, live and die tells us more about them than Nana perhaps gave himself credit for.

I thought it was a debut, the signs of a green author unsure of his footing yet, it’s his second published work.

The single worst thing about Chain Gang All-Stars is how compelling the characters could have been, had he given them space to breathe. The heart of our story lies in the relationship between Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxx” Stacker, two Black women imprisoned on murder charges, standing on the edge of high freedom (low freedom is death) and well past the point of infamy. They’re stars in their own right and getting to watch them reconcile with that reality admist a stunning amount of violence, apathy and paranoia was where most of my interests lie. These women met each other at the lip of death hour after hour and while avoiding such fates, offered each other a soft space to land. This relationship had a lot of heart to it because the weight of mortality rests atop them like a mosquito net, every second together counted because the seconds were counted.

It was interesting to see love explored with characters occupying contrasting narratives about their stories, purpose and potential.

In this way the pair act as a foil to each other. Thurwar is deeply self loathing and like most of the characters we interact with in CAPE, she’s painfully aware of what led to her imprisonment and finds it difficult to imagine the cruelty and barbarity she’s surviving outpaces the permenance of killing her lover. She spends the majority of the novel emotionally flaggelating herself between bouts of anxiety related to her line’s fate. Staxx on the other hand not only accepts what she’s done, she thinks the succeeding events made her better. She sees her circumstances for what they are and the liveliness she exudes come from a sense of content related to her growth. Everyday she throws her all into loving, into being better, into spreading her love far and wide enough to collapse the system that birth this version of her.

In Staxx’ POV, I thought frequently of the brief words of Melanie “Melancholia” Bishop, Thurwars first match and kill within CAPE. Melancholia told Thurwar to love, to make them love her in return and to tuck the most central parts of her someplace safe, and she did, it was in Hamara.

It was their contrast that let me in on the novel’s outcome. By the first private moment Thurwar and Staxx have between their respective matches, I knew they’d be tasked with killing each other eventually. When the time came for their fight, we realize that this is perhaps the first murderous act that required no forgiveness because real love was present. They’d actually seen each other and that was indeed the highest victory since ultimately, everyone gets “freed” by blade or victory.

Typically, tales about imprisoned people are preoccupied with redemption, the “villain’s” journey to being a “law abiding citizen”. An attempt at softening the vitriol and indifference exhibited toward folks locked up, it’s the author’s way of saying “See, they are people and they can change!”. Chain Gang has little interest in pursuing this narrative and instead steers unflinchingly into the less soothing truth that it doesn’t matter if people can be redeemed if they’re not treated like human beings currently. On pg. 4, it’s established that Thurwar uses her full government name as opposed to a stage name to remind people of her personhood, even when she thinks she doesn’t deserve such consideration.

We experience characters who work within CAPE’s appartatus or just enjoy the spoils of it and they all share one quality: voyeurism. It’s not enough to know these death matches are occuring, they have to watch them, buy tickets to see them in person, goad participants into interracting with them where they can. There are eyes on the CAPE at all times, most of which are elective. These gladiators are bonefide comic book characters for the majority of the people interacting with them which made their solitary moments feel like a reward. We’re introduced to Staxx as she’s coming out for her fight with Bear and she says one of the most vulnerable things disclosed about her in a rather pedestrian manner.

“She closed her eyes and entered her body. Her body didn’t always make her feel safe, but there, underneath the ocean of voices, it felt immaculate.”

This is the plainest language we get out of Hamara, who for the majority of the novel masters doublespeak, she tows the line between saying everything, in the middle of what looks like nothing. Staxx comes alive in the BattleGround because she can’t kill if she didn’t feel alive, if she didn’t want to live. It’s this very understanding that later punctuates the mercy she shows Thurwar that leads to her (low) freedom. Staxx is at her best (or believes she is), in the BattleGround and it’s where she feels seen— to walk out would be to kill a part of her that allowed her to fight for salvation.

Love is her primary motivation and that’s evident until the very end, even if her beloved and deadly scythe weren’t aptly named LoveGuile. Every act, not matter how deadly, has love threaded through it.

And I suppose that’s what we’re to gather from most of the folks we interact with throughout this story. That in a needlessly cruel world begging to dispose of people, sometimes the only choice you’re allowed is whether or not to love. Agency restored in this liminal space where you get to decide how you feel and what it means even if the oppressive systems and their enablers don’t care about your feelings, or life.

In a better world, stories such as these would actually be fiction. In ours, it’s but an addendum to horrors currently being survived. Though I didn’t appreciate the lengthy footnotes and intellectual alleyoop, I understand why it exists—to see people. The people who are sequestered by the state to necrotize and hurt and suffer in the name of punishment, in the name of “justice”. Every minute Nana spent writing his novel, thousands of people were in chains, at the mercy of wardens, CO’s, cops, et. al and similarly, every second I spent reading his book and writing a review, they were still there and more of them are to come.

It sounds impossible but despite what the story entailed and how it ended, it never lost its humanity and the hope it occupies. A little light glimmered in the distance between every uncomfortable laugh in the audiences and weighted silence that made us believe they were actually getting how horrific this shit is. That light said “no one deserves this, seriously, no one.” and I nodded in agreement the entire way.

Chain Gang All-Stars is worth a read and more importantly, it’s worth further consideration. It charges us with the task of examining where we too are being voyeurs to harm, ask us to reject the whims of the oppressive systems that manufacture the circumstances for our known and unknown world. This isn’t the read you can have jovial conversations at the dinner party about necessarily, but it would do you well to lean into a friend, into someone you love and recommend they experience the tale for themselves.

1. I’ve seen some reviewers refer to it as a satire and I genuinely can’t abide by that notion. Also, the irony isn’t lost on me that I too am using footnotes.

2. The Criminal Action Penal Entertainment system that affords incarcerated individuals a chance to fight in the BattleGrounds for 3 years, if they’re successful (as in kill all opponents they face), they will be freed. This takes place under very coercive circumstances despite the program being “voluntary”.