All Starstruck —raia reviews Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s “Chain-Gang All-Stars”
When historians look back at the death matches of the past, the vivid descriptions of these events allow people to understand the utter cruelty of these displays. It becomes easy to separate the current times from the civilizations that existed thousands of years ago because of how difficult it is to draw a parallel from the lions, tigers, and bears of antiquity with the cruelty that exists in today’s society. From the stunning mind of Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah comes the captivating tale that gives its readers this necessary parallel. Following the love story between Loretta Thurwar and Hamara Stacker, the reigning champions of the deathly games organized by the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment program, this dystopian drama ties in narratives from every aspect of life behind bars. Between the pages of Chain-Gang All-Stars, the horror of the prison-industrial complex and its sins come into stark focus.
For people involved in activism and social justice work, prison abolitionism is a familiar subject. But outside of these circles, thinking of a world without prisons is just outside of the realm of imagination. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah writes within this view and offer readers a world that enables understanding what a world with prisons is really like. In many ways, before we can grasp freedom, we must understand the extent of our oppression. As the events of the characters in this book play out, Adjei-Brenyah draws on history to infuse the story with sharp commentary on the violence of incarceration and the flawed system of carceral justice. Whereas a history lecture leaves much nuance and context outside of its analysis, Chain-Gang All-Stars uses fiction to allow its readers to absorb the impact of historical realities through this intense story. And still, the facts hit hard.
With action scenes that tingle with the blood-thirsty excitement of the Colosseum to poetic prose when words are too few and far between, Chain-Gang All-Stars offers many layers to its readers. The path of each story, both the brief and the overarching, feels orchestrated and articulated with the grace of a master. Before you’ve digested a chapter, it feels like the next has already ushered you into its world and symbols. With his debut novel, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah establishes himself within a league of his own with Chain-Gang All-Stars. Following his debut Friday Black, a collection of short stories which explores Black identity through dystopian settings, readers await equally compelling depth and rich landscapes. And Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah does not disappoint. This novel shines as a parable of the cruelty of the system society warmly endorses as a necessary part of its makeup and as a testament to love that thrives even in the darkest of circumstances.
Chain-Gang All-Stars explores the carceral aspect of one’s body belonging to everything but oneself. As the convicts lay their lives on the line, their fates are decided upon by entertainment conglomerates that seek to maintain their own relevance at any cost. Both the technology that subdues the convicts in the death matches and in their prison labor refuses them their will, but more than that, it forces them to experience their will only at the expense of excruciating pain. With body modification that presents submission or agony as the only two options of an existence, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah paints a vivid picture of slavery and its connection to racial injustice and oppression through capitalism.
The world opened up by Chain-Gang All-Stars is a gaping wound, screaming for attention. With his sensitivity and gentle prose, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah devastates and comforts the reader, all on one page. It’s always been like this, he says gently once. It’s always been like this, he accuses again. As each event builds on another within this novel, the sequence prods the conscience. How can we not want better for us all? How can we be content in a world that allows these injustices to happen every day? Chain-Gang All-Stars invites us back into the heavy work of freedom, now.
