This Life - by Quntos Kunquest (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Lil Chris is just nineteen when he arrives at Angola as an AU--an admitting unit, a fresh fish, a new vict. He's got a life sentence with no chance of parole, but he's also got a clear mind and sharp awareness--one that picks up quickly on the details of the system, his fellow inmates, and what he can do to claim a place at the top. When he meets Rise, a mature inmate who's already spent years in the system, and whose composure and raised consciousness command the respect of the other prisoners, Lil Chris learns to find his way in a system bent on repressing every means he has to express himself.

Lil Chris and Rise channel their questions, frustrations, and pain into rap, and This Life flows with the same cadence that powers their charged verses. It pulses with the heat of impassioned inmates, the oppressive daily routines of the prison yard, and the rap contests that bring the men of the prison together.

This Life is told in a voice that only a man who's lived it could have--a clipped, urgent, evocative voice that surges with anger, honesty, playfulness, and a deep sense of ugly history. Angola started out as a plantation--and as This Life makes clear, black inmates are still in a kind of enslavement there. This Life is an important debut that commands our attention with the vigor, dynamism, and raw, consciousness-expanding energy of this essential new voice.

Review Quotes

"KunQuest's searing debut depicts a man's unrelentingly brutal life in the U.S. prison system. . . . Using an effective experimental combination of prose and rap lyrics, KunQuest brilliantly captures the cadence and rhythm of prison. Confident and unrelenting, this one hits hard." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"The characters may be suffering from mental, physical, and psychological violence of long-term imprisonment, but they find solace and complex relationships in community and art. An effective philosophical novel that uses hip-hop to tell a story of prison life and how rhyme can lead to redemption." --Kirkus Reviews

"KunQuest offers a full and precise portrait of prison life, from daily mundane rituals to the dynamics of relationships, philosophical musings, legal pitfalls, and the psychological turmoil experienced by individuals imprisoned for life." --Booklist

"Vital, inventive... I thought it was brilliant and original. It was unlike anything that I've ever read." --Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker

"What a gripping, evocative novel This Life is. Quntos KunQuest has given us an intimate, human, insightful tale that calls for action even as it claims self-acceptance. It's one hell of a debut." --Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours

"This Life is jolty, rhythmic, sometimes very funny, sermonizing and chopped: it is also beautiful. Quntos KunQuest has dreamed up, and molded, hammered, and shaped, a new mode of fiction: American, and poetic, and wonderfully free." --Rachel Kushner, author of The Mars Room

"Quntos KunQuest is such an original voice. His spirited prose and evocative storytelling will both knock you off balance and pull you in. In the end This Life is about what it means to be human in the most inhumane of places." --Alex Kotlowitz, author of An American Summer and There Are No Children Here

"This brilliant novel comes to us written in the secret and perfect language of those who are left behind walls to evolve from a very young age: brotherly love is the code, self-realization is the goal, unending hope is the sorrow. I love this book so much. I can't imagine why it has taken so long for the true genre of prison writing to arrive."--Deb Olin Unferth, author of Barn 8

"A compelling and detailed account of what daily life is like under incarceration, a parable of the search for meaning in dehumanizing conditions, and the growth of a complicated sense of mutual respect." --The Times-Picayune

"This Life deserves to be read, to be read widely, to be read aloud, to be savored, and to be thought about." --Book Pleasures

About the Author

Zachary Lazar is the author of six books, including Vengeance. He is a professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans.