Riots I Have Known

Author: Ryan Chapman

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $26.99 AUD
  • : 9781501197314
  • : Simon & Schuster
  • : Pocket Books
  • : 0.117934
  • : December 2020
  • : ---length:- '8'width:- '5.25'units:- Inches
  • : 26.99
  • :
  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Ryan Chapman
  • :
  • : Paperback
  • :
  • : 128
  • :
  • :
Barcode 9781501197314
9781501197314

Description

Longlisted for the 2019 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, Ryan Chapman's "gritty, bracing debut" (Esquire) set during a prison riot is "dark, daring, and laugh-out-loud hilarious...one of the smartest--and best--novels of the year" (NPR).   A largescale riot rages through Westbrook prison in upstate New York, incited by a poem in the house literary journal. Our unnamed narrator, barricaded inside the computer lab, swears he's blameless--even though, as editor-in-chief, he published the piece in question. As he awaits violent interruption by his many, many enemies, he liveblogs one final Editor's Letter. Riots I Have Known is his memoir, confession, and act of literary revenge.   His tale spans a childhood in Sri Lanka, navigating the postwar black markets and hotel chains; employment as a Park Avenue doorman, serving the widows of the one percent; life in prison, with the silver lining of his beloved McNairy; and his stewardship of The Holding Pen, a "masterpiece of post-penal literature" favored by Brooklynites everywhere. All will be revealed, and everyone will see he's really a good guy, doing it for the right reasons.   "Fitfully funny and murderously wry," Riots I Have Known is "a frenzied yet wistful monologue from a lover of literature under siege" (Kirkus Reviews).