Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s ‘Chain-Gang All-Stars’ is one of the year’s goriest novels. It’s also one of the best.
CHICAGO — In the first nine days that Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was on tour this month for his novel, “Chain-Gang All-Stars,” 23 mass shootings occurred in this country. More than 30 people were killed. Many more were injured. That’s according to the Gun Violence Archive, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that defines mass shootings as four or more killed or wounded. (They take their cue from the FBI, which defines mass “killings” as four or more victims.) When I met Adjei-Brenyah in the West Loop, he didn’t know those statistics; I didn’t know them, either. I looked them up later at home. Still, on a whim, I asked if he had an idea of how many people were killed by guns since his tour began.
He didn’t, and why would he? But the thought was not lost on him:
Adjei-Brenyah, who belongs on anyone’s shortlist of great new American writers, specializes in tales of : How much
