Ultraviolent prison abolition set in an immediate future where our societal capacity to inflict pain is only limited by death. Our characters are flawed violent criminals given by the author a full capacity for love and loss and trauma without any easy redemption.

Personal aside, it's six years since Begley's "Concussion Protocol" short video ended my watching American Football. The only parts of this book that are a little faint or maybe subtle are the few views outside of the penal world, and implicate so much more of our lives, in how our jobs and our passions and corporate interests deaden us to pain of others.