Chain Gang All Stars

"The explosive, hotly-anticipated debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black, about two top women gladiators fighting for their freedom within a depraved private prison system not so far-removed from America's own. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker are the stars of 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 for 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, she 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 is 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, New York Times Book Review)"--

The Freeing of Melancholia Bishop
 
Part I
Hurricane Staxxx
B3
Teacup
The Bandwagon
Electric
Hendrix “Scorpion Singer” Young
The Van
Personhood Link
Circuit
Sports Central
Salt Bath
Simon
The New
Food
Door Four
Stable
 
Part II
Simon Craft
Children of Incarcerated People
Vega
The Board
Melee
To Be Influenced
The Art of Influence
Sing- Attica- Sing
Vacation
Grounded
Simon J. Craft
Sung
Babe?
The Ride
McCleskey
Hamara
Presser
We the Enslaved
Interview
Kai
Balloon Archway
The Farmers Market
Deane’s Creams
This
Part III
Sunset Harkless
Tear Gas
The Legend of One-Arm Scorpion Singer Hendrix and the Unkillable Jungle Craft
Bad Water
The Regional
Preparation
The Drive
The Morning Of
Shareef
The Feeling
Yes
Through the Door
Season 33
Suck My Dick, America
BlackOut
Game
Colossal
Freeing Day
Loretta Thurwar
 
Acknowledgments