Riots I Have Known

  • Author: Ryan Chapman
  • Narrator: Vikas Adam
  • Publisher: Simon & Schuster
  • Duration: 4:03:10
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Synopsis

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).

Chapters

  • 001 RiotsIHaveKnown IN

    Duration: 25s
  • 002 RiotsIHaveKnown Epigraph

    Duration: 09s
  • 003 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 20min
  • 004 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 37min
  • 005 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 23min
  • 006 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 55min
  • 007 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 26min
  • 008 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 21min
  • 009 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 10min
  • 010 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 12min
  • 011 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 09min
  • 012 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 02min
  • 013 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 14min
  • 014 RiotsIHaveKnown

    Duration: 07min
  • 015 RiotsIHaveKnown OUT

    Duration: 31s