Riots I Have Known

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).

Author: Ryan Chapman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 11/17/2020
Pages: 128
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.30lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.30w x 0.50d
ISBN13: 9781501197314
ISBN10: 1501197312
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | Satire
- Fiction | Humorous | General