Changing the culture of kill in “Chain-Gang All-Stars”
By Ning Chang
Chain-Gang All-Stars is ostensibly a dystopia, but calling it a dystopia seems to miss the central point of the novel – that the heart of many of these experiences is the reality of many Americans.
The world of Loretta and her lover, Hamara “Hurricane Staxx” Stacker, is filled with a litany of violences committed by them and against them. We follow the pair as they struggle to preserve their humanity and dignity in a system whose profit motive is to literally bleed them dry.
It is not a stretch to say that the hyper-carceral, hyper-capitalist world of Loretta and Hamara is just a few steps from our own.
“It’s really just a slight extrapolation against where we already are,” Nana observes as we chat over Zoom.
“And that is the sort of idea, to remind us that we are already in a horrific place. People always ask me about dystopias and why I’m interested in dystopias. And I’m like, I think dystopia just depends on what side of the street you’re on. If dystopia means unnecessary suffering, it’s everywhere.”
From time to time, you are startled with real names and concepts: George HW Bush and the 1033 Program; the 19th century Auburn system; George Stinney, 14 years old, killed by the electric chair in South Carolina.
These stories and the mechanics of death that are spun out into fiction on the page have very clear roots in our current reality; again, dystopia is not as far away as it seems.
Changing the culture of kill in “Chain-Gang All-Stars”