Chain Gang All Stars

A Link on the A-Hamm Chain and Thurwar’s romantic partner, Staxxx is loving and compassionate and has a sense of humor; her role on the Chain is lifting up fellow Links and contributing to the greater good. Staxxx was incarcerated for killing a man who was sexually assaulting her, which develops the theme of The Relationship Between Mass Incarceration and Structural Inequality—Staxxx was only a target for sexual violence because of systemic failures.

Possibly because this murder was really morally justified self-defense, Staxxx refuses to let her crime define her or the CAPE program to deaden her inner life. This is why she always talks about love before death matches—like Melancholia Bishop, Staxxx knows that to survive CAPE psychically intact, fighters have to “[l]ove, then get out” (8). Staxxx hopes to change the future for others by eliminating the CAPE program—she keeps this hope in mind as she kills opponents to avoid some of the inevitable emotional damage of her life.

Staxxx’s speeches to the audience, her relationship with Thurwar, and her implementation of a no-violence rule amongst the members of A-Hamm showcase the power of Love and Forgiveness as Restorative Justice. Treating their Chain like a family instead of enemies orients members of A-Hamm to fighting the real enemy: capitalism and the prison industrial complex.

Besides Thurwar and Staxxx, A-Hamm includes Sunset Harless, who dies by suicide assisted by Staxxx; Sai Eye Aye, a trans fighter subjected to constant questioning of their identity; Bad Water; newcomer Rico Muerte, whom Thurwar equips using her own Blood Points; Staxxx’s sometime lover Randy Mac, who dies on the BattleGround; Ice Ice the Elephant; and the cynical fatalist Gunny Puddles.

These characters’ demographics play into The Relationship Between Mass Incarceration and Structural Inequality: They are disproportionately people of color, reflecting the real racial breakdown of the US prison population. As the narrator makes clear in a footnote, people of color and transgender people are more likely to be imprisoned in the real US than white and cisgender people. The Links’ racial and gender identities are exploited by GameMasters to dehumanize CAPE fighters in the eyes of the TV audience. For example, as Black women, Staxxx and Thurwar are valorized for their combat prowess and longevity, but the misogyny and racism of their fans, as well as the GameMasters’ emphasis on their crimes, makes it clear that they are also objectified and seem disposable.

The novel’s depiction of A-Hamm also highlights the way they resist the CAPE program by using Love and Forgiveness as Restorative Justice, forging their own rules to benefit the Chain and inspire the wider collective. On other Chains, Links murder each other with impunity, and there are benefits to murdering teammates: earning Blood Points, taking the possessions of those killed, and burnishing one’s reputation. However, A-Hamm refuses to allow intra-Chain murder, creating a safe haven within a hellishly violent system. Embracing joy, hope, love, and/or forgiveness, A-Hamm sees their Chain as found family.

Hendrix Young—a protagonist from the novel’s flashbacks—is a Link on the Sing-Attica-Sing Chain who joined the CAPE program after years in a silent prison based on the real-life 19th-century Aurora model, where incarcerated laborers worked in forced silence to increase productivity. Like other characters, Young joined CAPE to escape the inhumane conditions of his original prison. Young and his fellow inmates worked at a slaughterhouse for no pay—another piece of the novel drawn from the real world: The 13th Amendment abolished all enslavement except for that of incarcerated people, who are then used as free labor to profit the privatized prisons where they are held.

In CAPE, Young reclaims his voice, spreading a small amount of joy, grace, love, and care to his fellow Links, exhibiting Love and Forgiveness as Restorative Justice. Even when Simon J. Craft killed all of the Chain’s Links—several of them Young’s friends—Young recognized that Craft was owed mercy for having developed severe mental illness from being tortured by the Influencer. Their unlikely bond keeps them safe through the violence the CAPE program demands until they must battle Thurwar and Staxxx. Even during the match, Young hopes to speak to Thurwar, realizing that both have arrived at the same conclusion: that self-hatred and the conviction that the future holds no redemption only bring that bleak future to fruition.

Another protagonist from the novel’s flashback time frame, Simon J. Craft joined CAPE after being subjected to extensive solitary confinement and extreme Influencer torture in prison. By the time he became a CAPE fighter, Simon had severe mental illness, which exhibited as dissociation, paranoia, and significant memory loss. After Simon was placed on the Sing-Attica-Sing, he slaughtered every other Link besides Hendrix Young, whom he at first feared and then came to see as a kind of guardian angel.

Simon’s journey reveals one the main hypocrisies of the CAPE program: Though it claims to only enroll participants of sound mind who have not been coerced, every Link we see had little choice of joining CAPE because the conditions of their original punishments were so bad that they would do anything to escape them. Simon’s horrific treatment at the hands of the sadistic Officer Lawrence also points to The Violence of Capitalism: Although Patty tried to destroy the Influence technology she had accidentally created, the device was created and marketed anyway—her lab supervisor saw its potential for large profits. The Influencer’s violence in turn begets violence. After being Influenced into forgetting most of his identity, Simon went on a murderous rampage.

The nickname “Unkillable” is ironic. No human is unkillable, but CAPE combat has been designed to make it seem like the participants aren’t human, so this nickname bolsters the show’s goal. However, the Links are actually much more killable than most people because they have to battle in weekly death matches and can also be killed by teammates with impunity. Simons’ other nickname, “Jungle,” represents his lost identity: His middle initial stands for “Jeremiah,” but he has forgotten this piece of his history. The nickname also plays with racist tropes internalized by Young, connoting the damaging and derogatory stereotype of Black people as less civilized.

Sunset’s daughter, Mari, is a member of the Coalition to End Neo-Slavery, an abolitionist group seeking to end the CAPE program, the prison industrial complex, and the death penalty. Mari does not know Sunset well since he has been incarcerated most of her life; Mari’s mother is also incarcerated, so she was raised by her aunt Kai. Mari illustrates that incarceration victimizes the families of those imprisoned, always affecting many more people than just the one with the prison sentence. Prison thus punishes the community at large, exacerbating issues that it was supposed to fix—another aspect of The Relationship Between Mass Incarceration and Structural Inequality.

Like Thurwar and Staxxx, Mari uses her experiences with the prison industrial complex as motivation to dismantle that system. Rather than allowing pain and tragedy to consume her and immobilize her, she turns pain into positive change. For example, despite the risks of protesting at the BattleGround, empowered by Tracy Lasser’s speech on a Sports Channel, Mari decides to demonstrate against CAPE in the most visible way possible. Her bravery makes a powerful statement, especially after she is Influenced into unconsciousness. The novel thus posits that the systemic problem of the prison industrial complex can be tackled through individual action because many independent voices will coalesce into a collaborative solution.

Tracy, who was friends with Staxxx in high school, has worked for years to become a sports newscaster. However, the horrors of the CAPE program are too much to ignore, so on her first day working for the major network that airs Chain-Gang All-Stars, Tracy speaks out against the program instead of reading her script. Tracy’s speech, which summarizes abolitionist arguments against the prison industrial complex, elaborates on the themes of The Relationship Between Mass Incarceration and Structural Inequality and The Violence of Capitalism. Tracy’s willingness to give up her dream of sports reporting to protest injustice inspires and motivates the novel’s burgeoning abolitionist movement. Tracy thus subverts capitalist ideals by redefining success as moral rectitude and working to benefit a marginalized community. While Tracy’s speech alone cannot end the program—it is only one part of the collective effort—her words change others’ minds, demonstrating that truth can also be contagious.