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    Riots I Have Known
    Riots I Have Known
    Riots I Have Known
    Audiobook4 hours

    Riots I Have Known

    Written by Ryan Chapman

    Narrated by Vikas Adam

    3/5

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    About this audiobook

    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).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMay 21, 2019
    ISBN9781508284482
    Author

    Ryan Chapman

    Ryan Chapman is a Sri Lankan-American writer originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. His work has appeared online at The New Yorker, GQ, McSweeney’s, BookForum, BOMB, Guernica, and The Believer. A recipient of fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and the Millay Colony for the Arts, he lives in Kingston, New York.

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    Reviews for Riots I Have Known

    3/5

    18 ratings3 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Riots I have Known is a wicked little novella, that will not be for all tastes. The erudite narrator, sprays words like machine gunfire, as he mulls over the raging riot brewing just outside his barricaded door. He also recounts his childhood and the events that led up to his imprisonment. I can't help but be reminded of David Foster Wallace. For me, it falls short of greatness but I still found plenty to enjoy here.
    • 4/5
      I listened to this novella while doing a jigsaw puzzle today. It's an odd little book, but I found it very funny - full of black humor and ruminations on writing and art. The narrator is a felon in a prison and the editor of the prison's literary magazine. He tells his story while barricaded in a room during a prison riot. There's really no plot to speak of, but the narrator, depsite his insufferable pretension, is an enjoyable companion and his commentary on prison life and the literary scene is often laugh out loud funny.This won't be to everyone's taste, but I enjoyed the 3 or so hours spent with it.
    • 2/5
      A clever concept that could yield enough material for a short story, but as a novella it became nearly unreadable. The reader has no reason to care for the narrator.