Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars comes to publication freighted with hype because of its stark envisioning of American death row prisoners forced to fight one another to the bloody end, with the bouts televised. The prisoners are mainly Black and they become stars in the entertainment industry on the “outside”, with gimmicky names and basic, almost caveman-like signature weapons. Instead of the Norse god Thor’s hammer Mjölnir, here there’s a hammer called Hass Omaha, a scythe named LoveGuile and a mace labelled Vega. The inmates have the chance to move up the fighters’ league and finally be free – if they kill enough of their fellow prisoners. A giant fighter called Barry Harris – fight name Rave Bear – “looked like he’d been pulled from a woodchipper” by the end of a match. Other characters are called Hurricane Staxxx, Gunny Puddles, Ring Ya Bells – an overripe blend of gamer IDs, B-movie love interests, prison nicknames, wrestling monikers and pure grand guignol.
The novel is a crushingly painful, loaded and on-the-nose commentary on racism, exploitation, inequality and the legacy and loud echoes of slavery in the US. The prison system, big business, the entertainment industry, local policing, tech surveillance and the military have all fused into one hellish mega-complex: the fighters are pushed around by “soldier-police”, their every move recorded and broadcast, both for security and to scintillate their reality TV audience; their magnetised restraints made from the latest tech, their fights sponsored by food and beverage brands and trumpeted as family entertainment. Indeed, as one character reflects: “All other sport was just a metaphor for this.” Yet the result is that millions of viewers worldwide are “consuming poison, no matter how savoury the package”.
