At a time when so much of the world has been measured, so many arguments settled — tallest mountain (Everest), largest ocean (Pacific), most venomous snake (western taipan) — the question of which river is the world’s longest remains, somehow, tantalizingly beyond our reach. What appears at first to be a basic geographic query, a matter of cold science and hard numbers, has instead morphed into a cartographical dispute that has divided the scientific and exploration communities along the fault lines of national identity, units of measurement and even personal pique.
Chain-Gang All-Stars is an ambitious novel by a determined author. Most novelists who want to address hideous social conditions imagine what might happen next and let the damaged characters and grim circumstances do the work. Adjei-Brenyah certainly does this. But via footnotes, he adds messages from history, contemporary and otherwise, to his tale of a world in which the treatment of people convicted of murder is even worse than what incarcerated men and women face in this country. And America leads the world, at least among allegedly democratic nations, in imprisoning its citizens. One such footnote makes that precise numerical point. Another footnote refers to the real life inhumane treatment of three men, Albert Woodfox, Robert King, and Herman Wallace, who all spent decades in isolation before two of them were released and one of them had died.
The God of Good Looks represents a vibrant, nuanced, and entertaining view of Caribbean culture, a perspective that transcends both trauma and pure escapism. At the sweet spot between popular entertainment and literature, it's riveting and transportive — a summer read with bite.
If you have ever lived in Florida, wintered in Florida, or even vacationed in Florida, you will appreciate the humor Barry finds in the state. And even if you haven’t been there, you’ll enjoy a good laugh at its expense.