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 “This book is so good. Brutal
subject matter beautiful writing. This one is from the heart.” — Stephen King 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 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 i s 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 ).
