Riots I Have Known
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Overview
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).
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781501197314
- ISBN-10: 1501197312
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster
- Publish Date: November 2020
- Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 0.3 pounds
- Page Count: 128
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