"From twice National Book Award-nominated Rachel Kushner, whose Flamethrowers was called "the best, most brazen, most interesting book of the year" (Kathryn Schulz, New York magazine), comes a spectacularly compelling, heart-stopping novel about a life gone off the rails in contemporary America. It's 2003 and Romy Hall is at the start of two consecutive life sentences at Stanville Women's Correctional Facility, deep in California's Central Valley....

Jack Conrad is awaiting the death penalty in a corrupt Central American prison. He is 'purchased' by a TV producer and taken to a desolate island for a fight to the death against nine other condemned killers, with freedom to the sole survivor.