What I’ve learned from dystopian/speculative fiction books, including this one, is that the revolution may not be televised, but the human rights abuses, the cruelty, the inhumanity, the degradation, and the state-sponsored violence will be streamed to the masses.
On its face, Chain-Gang All-Stars is about “Links” of one prison chain-gang versus Links from other chain-gangs from other prisons. Prisoners who “voluntarily” enter the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment (CAPE) program legally murder each other, in packed arenas and on pay-for-view, for the enjoyment of a dystopic America. And, if they can last three years of televised physical and psychological debasement and murder, they will be released from prison. And if they can’t last three years, well, they’re also released; from life itself.
But really, this book is about the need to abolish private prisons and reform our carceral system as a whole. And we need to do it sooner rather than later. The author uses the fictional CAPE program in a fictional, future, dystopian America to make this point and it’s very effective. Because, as the author makes clear, outside of the CAPE program itself, and some new, futuristic ways to torture incarcerated people, most everything in this book is already a problem.
Incarcerated people are already abused, raped, murdered, tortured, and used as slave labor here in America. They are already predominantly people of color. They are already preyed on by the prison industrial complex. And they are already treated as sub-human by many of their fellow citizens.
And if we don’t change, I think Chain-Gang All-Stars makes a very good point about where we could end up; making money off of televising incarcerated people murdering each other.
4 stars because it’s excellent but I didn’t enjoy reading it because it made me mad and sad.
CBR18 Bingo: Versus (person vs person and person vs society)
