Chain-Gang All Stars is a book that's been described as both literary and science fiction, but most importantly is a novel that uses its dystopian science fiction setting largely for a critique of the USA's criminal justice and carceral systems and the way those systems are moving forward (especially into privatization). The book is INCREDIBLY hard to read - it took me a week when I usually would've taken two days for a book of its length - because it is so hard to read the horrors it contains for too much at a time. It's a book that combines its story of a world where prisoners are allowing to fight in what amount to murderous coliseum bouts for years in order to possibly earn their freedom with looks at the outside world accepting and occaisionally protesting it, and adds in footnotes and bits to boot that make clear how the horrors being described in this near future aren't too far of from the horrors faced by prisoners and people in our carceral system now (especially people of color, women, and LGBTQ people).
The result is incredibly powerful, even as I think that the story and footnotes occasionally become unsubtle and tangential enough to become a distraction that might be a little counterproductive. This is a harsh tough novel about pain, punishment, incredibly cruelty and greed and hubris, and love and forgiveness, and it is not one that will ever provide a happy ending - which you'll figure out quite quickly I think. And the story will make you care for individuals, most of whom were not innocent to start and certainly are not innocent of brutal killings in the end, and will try to make you see how and why prison abolition is such a righteous cause, even if the particulars and the methods may not be there yet. It's a horrifying but strong novel worth your time, if you can stomach it.
Trigger Warnings: Suicide, Suicide by Proxy, Murders, Maimings, Torture, Torture of Prisoners, Cutting, Rape/Sexual Assault as backstory, Beatings of Protestors, well you get the point. None of this is gratuitous and all of it is such that it used for a good purpose but yikes, there's a lot and many readers won't be able to stomach this book.
Plot Summary:
The most popular entertainment in America is Chain-Gang All Stars: a television program in which prisoners sign away their rights to serve out their terms in exchange for a 3 year term as modern-day gladiators: where they're forced to kill other prisoners in an arena, fight in deadly melees, and work together as Links in Chain-Gangs...despite the fact that one's Linkmates are just as likely to stab you in the back and murder you if you're not careful. If a prisoner survives and kills long enough they might achieve their ultimate prize, their freedom, and in the meantime, the more kills they perform the more "blood points" they acquire that they can cash in for perks like food, beds, and endorsements to cushion their lives for as long as it lasts. Only one person has ever made it all the way to freedom, but the prisoners are willing to take that chance, especially given the horrors that await them in the private prison system otherwise, and audiences around America lap up the entertainment of these "criminals" being forced to kill one another and form relationships borne in blood.
Loretta Thurwar is only a few fights from being the second person ever to win her freedom in Chain-Gang All Stars, and she and her beloved linkmate and lover Hamara "Huricane Staxxx" Stacker, along with the rest of their accomplished chain, can taste freedom all so close. But the people in charge of Chain-Gang All Stars aren't willing to let her get her freedom so easily, and will put certain obstacles in her path that will force her question whether all this is even worth it. And as Thurwar, Staxxx, and others struggle to survive inside the game, a group of protestors, led by the daughter of Thurwar's dead former linkmate and best friend, are fighting to try and make it clear to a bloodthirsty America how horrifying the games and this system truly is. If only anyone will listen.....
Chain-Gang All Stars has a few plotlines and characters the story tends to focus upon: Thurwar and Staxxx and what happens as Thurwar's campaign marches towards freedom (and how the capitalist management of the games tries to exploit it and their love for one another) is one; Mari and the protest movement against the murderous games is another; then almost as prominently at times (and taking place from a rare first person perspective) are the stories of two other prisoners turned game contestants: a maimed singing prisoner named Hendrix Young and a prisoner tortured into mental incapacity named Simon J. Craft. There are also other narratives we see on rare occasion, like a couple where the husband is a massive fan of the games and the wife is repulsed at first but slowly finds herself unable to resist getting invested and watching. And then there are plenty of one of narrative point of view chapters.
I bring up this wide scope because it doesn't really always work as a narrative device for telling a story. Chain-Gang All Stars very much uses these narrative devices and footnotes to try and explain the horrors of our current carceral and criminal justice system, with the story not just relying upon science fiction versions of where our system is going, but also pointing out through character inner thoughts and through footnotes how unjust the system is now, and how it affects largely people of color, LGBTQ people, and women more than others. The story also uses the footnotes to mention things about people mentioned in story, which makes the footnotes kind of a mixed bag - I found them honestly distracting and throwing me out of the story even as their fact-telling about our world was important and it was only made worse by some footnotes being tidbits not about our world but about characters (usually as they were killed). The same is true of some of the narrative choices, like one chapter from the perspective a racist member of the main chain-gang we see which appears largely to explain some statistics and history about our real world that just feels like it doesn't quite fit other than as an author dump. Again, as I'll detail down below, all of this is important, so I'm not sure how much I want to criticize it, but as a story it kind of fails.
At the same time, where the story does work and the themes are shown - and even when it's an author dump - it works so well and is so powerful and distressing that even as the story is hard to read, it's hard to ignore in importance. The story critiques all of the above systems as well as how our capitalist society lets this happen and resists change because it enriches those already in power - as we see from a few chapters from those people's perspectives. And most people, even when exposed to how horrible it all is, will simply keep watching and justify it to themselves in the name of narrative entertainment or in the belief that these criminals must all deserve what they get, no matter how horrifying, and can never be forgiven...and that such punishments are necessary to keep us safe, even when that's not what the statistics say at all. And Capitalism will simply justify more and more suffering to enrich itself, whether that be taking a device that could free us from pain and and making it a device that instills horrible pain instead or using the prisoners essentially as slaves unless they'll murder for entertainment...and will then use those gladiators as advertisements for various products. And the story shows us all this while also getting us really really damn invested in its main characters, whether that be Thurwar, Staxx, Mari, Craft, or Singer, such that you care what happens to them even as you dread horribly how it will all end up. Because no happy ending is coming here, and that's apparently pretty quickly.
The result is a brutal novel that strongly makes the case for prison abolition and anti-capitalism, even in the absence of a clear model of a system to replace our carceral system. It's a story that will show you how horrible our world is through a look at the world it may become, and it's one that many readers won't be able to stomach, but if they can try, they should.
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