Bottlerocket x White Whale: Chain-Gang All-Stars - NANA KWAME ADJEI BRENYAH

1226 Arlington Avenue,Pittsburgh PA 15210

12 May, 2023

Description

We're thrilled to host phenomenal talent Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (author of the bestselling collection Friday Black) on tour for Chain-Gang All-Stars, his electrifying novel! Pittsburgh fave Damon Young (What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker) will join Nana on stage for a conversation. Meet us at Bottlerocket Social Hall in Allentown for what's sure to be a memorable evening. A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR 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. She felt their eyes, all those executioners… 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, The New York Times Book Review). NANA KWAME ADJEI-BRENYAHThe New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Esquire, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx. DAMON YOUNG The author of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays, and the winner of Thurber Prize for American Humor and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. He is also the co-founder of the culture blog VerySmartBrothas and was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post Magazine, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a columnist for GQ. Currently, Damon is the creator and host of a podcast with Crooked Media, “Stuck with Damon Young.”