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Alison Stewart:  You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. The National Book Award finalists were announced with a slate of some of this year's best fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translations, and young people's lit. We are proud to say we had one of the finalists on the show recently to talk about his nominated work, which is also his debut novel. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's book Chain-Gang All-Stars is set in a futuristic but certainly recognizable United States, a place where for-profit prisons take things to a whole new level.

Chain-Gang All-Stars is joined by four other finalists in the fiction category, and they are: This Other Eden by Paul Harding, set in a racially integrated fishing community from the 18th century, Temple Folk by Aaliyah Bilal, a short story collection featuring the perspectives of Black Muslim American women, The End of Drum-Time by Hanna Pylväinen, a love story between an indigenous Scandinavian reindeer hunter and a Lutheran missionary, and Blackouts by Justin Torres, which explores the gaps in queer history.

Congratulations to all of the finalists and good luck. The winners will be announced on November 15th. Let's turn to my conversation about Chain-Gang All-Stars with its writer, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

In the story, incarcerated people can earn their freedom through a system called the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment Program, also known as CAPE, and by penal entertainment, think gladiator, prisoners fighting violently to the death in an arena. The events are televised spectacles with corporate sponsorship.

In Adjei-Brenyah's story, the protagonist is Loretta Thurwar, and one of her main opponents is Hurricane Staxxx, with an X, who is also her lover. Loretta is so close to getting out. The question is, will she gain her freedom? If so, what happens next? At the beginning of my conversation with Adjei-Brenyah, I asked him to read the first page of Chain-Gang All-Stars.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: This is from the very beginning of the book, which we're not calling a prologue because some people don't read the prologue I've discovered, and that's really sad. It's called The Freeing of Melancholia Bishop. "She felt their eyes, all those executioners. 'Welcome young lady,' said Mickey Wright, the premier announcer for Chain-Gang All-Stars, the crown jewel in the Criminal Action Penal Entertainment Program. 'Why don't you tell us your name?' His high boots were planted on the turf of the battleground, which was long and green, stroked with cocaine, white hash marks like a divergent football field.

It was Super Bowl weekend. A fact that Wright was contractually obligated to mention between every match that evening. 'You know my name'. She noticed her own steadiness and felt a dim love for herself. Strange. She counted herself wretched for so long, but the crowd seemed to appreciate her boldness. They cheered though their support was edged with a brutal irony. They looked down on this Black woman, dressed in the gray jumpsuit of the incarcerated. She was tall and strong, and they looked down on her at the tight coils of black hair on her head. They looked down gleefully. She was about to die. They believed this the way they believed in the sun and the moon and the air they breathed."

Alison Stewart: The not prologue.

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Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Yes, isn't that crazy?

Alison Stewart: How does that first scene-- It goes on for a couple of more pages, how does it really set us up for the story?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: It introduces us, first and foremost, to Loretta Thurwar, who's a novelist protagonist. It also introduces us to the sort of violent blood sport that is Chain-Gang All-Stars battlegrounds, which is one-half of the program. The other half is called Chain-Gang All-Stars link life, which is more like a rare world where we follow these convicted people who have chosen to opt into this blood sport and in their regular life stuff. It sets up the bloody stakes, and just how dangerous and violent things are.

Alison Stewart: What is something that Loretta knows about herself and you as her creator that we, the audience, don't really know just yet?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: That's interesting, and I got to think to not spoil stuff. I think that she has awareness of-- I mentioned it a little bit here about her-- She has a big darkness that she's holding all the time. We see that darkness rupture into this desire to survive and become something else. She's holding a lot of secrets, but it's hard for me to say too many of them.

Alison Stewart: All right. She's holding secrets, so we have to keep that in mind. If you were to introduce her to someone for the first time, how would you describe her?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: I would describe her as a survivor. As someone who, despite her circumstances is moral, and someone who can contain many things at once. She contains multitudes, I'd say.

Alison Stewart: She is showered with glory and attention, but she's still incarcerated. She's still someone who is in prison. How does she feel about this? You're talking about being able to contain multitudes. How does she feel about this situation?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: When the novel starts, we're catching her-- After this prologue, we're catching her a couple of years into this bloody system. She's gone through many different stages of feeling. She's gone through the part where she's just terrified, and then she gotten past the part where she's embracing the celebrity and lavishing in the glory. Where we find her, for most of the books, she's looking back mournfully at what she's done and considering what she'll do next. She's in a place of, not exactly regret, but mournful reflection.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The name of the book is Chain-Gang All-Stars. Let's describe this fictional program that the novel's based around, CAPE, has its own set of rules, its own vocabulary. How does it function within the context of this version of the United States?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Yes. In the book, Chain-Gang All-Stars, convicted wards of state can opt out of a sentence of at least 25 years and participate in these death matches. If they survive on Circuit, which is the name for the seasons, they survive in this game for three years, they are awarded clemency. That's the ultimate motivation to participate. Again, of course, the downside is they may, at any time, be killed, with no penalty to the government or the programs that are administering this punishment.

It's about that system has become one of the most popular and most biggest growing sports in the country. We are following, particularly, Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" Stacker, who were some of the most popular participants in this game.

Alison Stewart: As I mentioned in the intro, I'm not giving anything away, that they are lovers, not just opponents.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Yes.

Alison Stewart: What do they see in each other?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: I think that in each other, they see each other. A part of why I had Staxxx when I was creating Staxx and felt she has to be a woman is I needed someone who could understand Thurwar completely. Thurwar is as a champion and someone who has committed these atrocities because of the sport, but also she's a Black woman who is in the limelight. I think we know that there's a particular edge of both exalt and meanness. There's a way that I think Black women are often held up, but also try to be pulled down all at once. I think that Staxxx is one of the few people who could completely understand Thurwar in that way and vice versa.

Alison Stewart: In this world that you're creating, you didn't create a completely fantastic world. One that we couldn't imagine or that we'd have to fully use our imagination to be in. Why did you decide to pick a world which is imaginable?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: That's my lane. I think I like to think about what is in front of us and extrapolate just a little bit towards the future, but not inflecting too much of my own whimsy. Really thinking about the fundamental moral, ethical stance we're assuming. Basically, we know that in our current constitution, slavery is protected explicitly in the case of convicted criminals as maybe has been made famous by Ava DuVernay in the-

Alison Stewart: 13th.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: -13th. If that's the case, there's a lot on the table. I'm saying, "Well, okay, if that's fine, what about this?" We already know in America it's okay for people to profit off the incarceration of human beings. If that's okay, then what about this? Where is your more ethical line? I'm saying it doesn't really exist. That's really why I try to keep things familiar because the point I'm trying to make I think most is that already we're in a space that is completely devoid of compassion. Already we're in a space that is inhumane by any real standard.

Alison Stewart: There's a whole lot of corporate sponsorship around. All I kept thinking about was that-- I think I remember this from maybe the last time we talked is you used to work in a mall. [laughs]

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Yes, I did.

Alison Stewart: Up in Black Palisades.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Do you remember, yes.

Alison Stewart: I think 13S, I believe, is the exit.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: It is. Wow. Yes.

Alison Stewart: What from that experience about consumerism and the way people like to buy things was useful for you in writing that part of this story?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: My first book, Friday Black, the titular story, I use that word because I learned it at conferences and I like to say it because it sounds smart. The titular story of Friday Black was about zombified shoppers who are willing to do anything to get jeans or a brand-name jacket or whatever. I think that a lot of that book, and also a lot of my interest is driven by the different systems that get us to forget each other's humanity. I think in a corporate capitalism, material gain and profit is seen as almost the most wholly motivator of all. In our current system, it's a thing that happens all the time that humans are disregarded in favor of making profits, and so I'm always been interested in that. I can see it on maybe personal level, but also on a systemic level.

Sometimes I think that we're almost infected with the systemic attitudes. That's what the Friday Black was. I put that same energy. I think that same energy exists. I didn't have to put it there in our attitude towards prisoners and prison labor, which is effectively slave labor.

Alison Stewart: This book, actually, the novels started out as part of when you were working on that collection, right?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Yes, that's right.

Alison Stewart: As a writer, when do you know, "All right, this thing is going to outgrow its parameters as a short story?"

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: It's a long painful process. For someone like me, it's you're trying to jam a square into a circle and it just doesn't work. In my heart of hearts, I really love the short story form. I love feeling like every single word feels purposeful. When I started writing what would become this book, I had the idea of this woman in the eye of the arena, speaking to the crowds and that mournful reflection I was talking about.

I was just so interested in her voice. I was so interested in what she was looking back on. I started to think, "Okay, let's see." I did some research, and once I started doing the research, I was like, "This is a lot. This is an iceberg that I think I need to try to explore more of," whereas, oftentimes, I can feel satisfied with getting the tip of the iceberg. This time, I needed to explore it fully.

Alison Stewart: What research were you doing, into prison system, into women and athletes, into women who excel?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Into many of those things, particularly into prisons, but also into sports organizations too. I remember reading this legal document called What Is The NBA? The answer is actually not legally that obvious. It's very strange, because it's many, several businesses that are working together as one business, but they're not exactly one business either.

Thinking about all these like basically groups of super-rich men who are doing this thing that's just for them, things like that, but mostly looking into prisons, the history of prison in America and abroad, the direct connections between slavery and our carceral system and things like this.

Alison Stewart: My guest is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. The name of the new novel is Chain-Gang All-Stars. You dedicate the book to your late father, who was, at one point, a defense attorney and you write, "There's nothing quite like helping someone in need." He said this. "There's nothing quite like helping someone in need, nothing quite like it." Is he a voice in your head when you write, or is he just a voice in your head all the time, honestly?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: He's a voice in my head in probably too many ways. My father is a Ghanaian immigrant as my mom. Anytime I get anything that I can, my mind is not a plus, plus, plus, plus. I hear him saying, "Not good enough." Also, I hear him saying, "You should try your best." If you have the ability to help someone, you should. In some ways, I'm pretty grateful for that voice in my head.

Alison Stewart: In the book, there are also footnotes throughout the book. What went into that creative decision?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Again, another painstaking one. I can't say I'm someone who loved the idea of having footnotes. To me, they break the fictive dream. I remember reading the John Gardner, Art of Fiction. His whole thing was, never break that fictive dream. That felt like a core tenet of my approach to being an artist. Because of the nature of this book, there is violence, there is, I don't know, these big set pieces that could be very entertaining.

I wanted it to be impossible to divorce the action and "fun of the book" from the very real human atrocity that is happening every single day through the American carceral system. I wanted that to be unmissable, but also I wanted to break the-- I think, artistically, I was interested in the challenge of making this thing that I felt artistically repulsed by one of the more fun elements of the book.

I wanted to break the linearity, the linear nature of the sentence and see if I could have fun with making my prose jump around a little bit. There's a lot of different reasons, but at first, even though it was my idea, I was very hesitant to do it, and then eventually became I think one of the hallmarks of the book.

Alison Stewart: There's a section in the book because these spectacles are televised. It's for reality TV shows you mentioned and the corporation sponsor these death matches. There's this scene where this character, Tracy Lasser, she is supposed to be giving a report on it on Sports Central. I'm going to read what she goes off script, shall we say?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Yes.

Alison Stewart: She says, "Funny thing is, Tracy said, and immediately she felt the energy in the room shift, 'I know Hurricane Stacks very well. She was a great friend of mine. We called her Hammy. She was one of the best athletes I've ever known, but what she's doing now with this program is telling you is sports is not sports. I wanted to be part of this program to talk about achievement, not murder, not lynching, not death. In the past few months, this program I've dreamed of being a part of for years has adopted the practice of airing exactly that, murder, lynching, death. I hoped it would be a phase that would quickly pass. I was wrong. Shame on you, Sports Central. My name is Tracy Lasser.'"

Then it says that now the clips were over and the camera had no choice but to blink back to her. "I stand in solidarity with those around the country who have demonstrated against so-called hard-action sports."

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: That was great.

Alison Stewart: Thank you.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Thank you for that.

Alison Stewart: I got into it. What is it that you want us to think about corporate media and its role in all of this?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: It's a really great question. Again, I wrote a lot of this before the former American president was elected, but I think we all have a responsibility to call out evil when we see it, to not be just blind to the wrong that's changing right in front of her eyes. I think Tracy demonstrates the very brave act of going against the corporate push. Again, it's perhaps to her own detriment, financially anyways, to do the right thing.

I think that we see that's rare. I think that's the thing that happens very rarely. There are people who do it and it's something to be admired. Jemele Hill is coming to my mind right now off the top of my head. There's people who do it and they are punished for it. Even when they're punished for it, I think that the response to them being punished is not strong enough either. We should support them more readily and more strongly.

In so many ways, we're also afraid of that, getting stomped out, not getting the endorsement deal, just being afraid of not having access to materials, material wealth. She demonstrates someone who's pushing back against the corporate overlord or whatever you want to call it, really trying her best to not just be as simply a cog in a machine, and it's something to be admired, I think.

Alison Stewart: Some of the scenes of the fights get a little gruesome.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: A lot of gruesome.

Alison Stewart: I was glad we still-- If we kept going with those first few pages, you'd get a taste of it being beautifully written, but it's gruesome. Some of it is. How did you think about writing those scenes so that they tell the story, also, they're entertaining but that so they don't fall into being gratuitous?

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: It's a very important question that is, I guess intimately one of the questions I always have to ask myself. I myself am pretty squeamish. I'm not really interested in super violent horror despite the way I write. I think that my sensitivity to that kind of violence is exactly why it shows up in my work so much. We all have this attitude towards the gallows, and people getting hanged. That's so crazy and antiquated.

I recently watched a video by a YouTuber named Jacob Galler about the false evolution of capital punishment and how before the gallows, they might quarter people, four horses. Then that became really, well that's so terrible. Then you get the gallows, then you get that you-- There's a step between that electric chair. Now we're starting to look at the electric chair like, oh that seems pretty-- That seems wrong because it's not just quick electricity sometimes people-

Alison Stewart: Language.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: -burst into flame. Sometimes you'll do over and over again. Now we have this false idea that the lethal injection is painless. It is not. I guess what I'm saying is that the American government kills people, and it is very gruesome no matter how we try to dress it up. More than that, the extra-judicial murder of people by the police is very gruesome.

It feels like I had to capture that the gruesomeness that is humans killing humans in some way. I chose to make it entertaining because I knew that that's how a corporate place that was trying to make money off of it would. That's what they would do to profit. I couldn't pretend that the act of killing humans isn't gruesome. For me, that was important to capture.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. His debut novel Chain-Gang All-Stars is a finalist for this year's National Book Award. The winners will be announced on November 15th.

As long as we're talking about books, there's still time to read our Get Lit with All Of It October pick, Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, about an author passing off the work of her dead friend as her own. The problem is, her dead friend is Asian and she is white. It's a story that reveals a lot about the publishing industry. New Yorkers, you can download an e-copy of the book courtesy of our excellent partners at the New York Public Library. Of course, you can pick it up at your local indie bookstore.

I will be in conversation with R.F. Kuang on October 26th at 6:00 PM at the Stavros Niarchos Rooftop Event Center. That event is sold out, but you can participate in two ways. One, there will be a live stream. Go to wnyc.org/getlit to find out how, and also go to our Instagram, where we have a poll up right now about the book at All Of It WNYC. Did June do enough work on the manuscript to call it her own? She certainly seems to think so. The Twitterverse has another opinion. That is our poll of the day for Yellowface from R.F. Kuang. There is more All Of It on the way.

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It is time to get your lawns and gardens and flower beds ready for winter. We have Better Homes & Gardens Editor-in-Chief Stephen Orr with us to talk about autumn lawn care and landscaping. There's more All Of It right after the news headlines.

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