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The Rent Collectors

Exploitation, Murder, and Redemption in Immigrant LA

Author Jesse Katz On Tour
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Hardcover
$28.00 US
Astra Publishing House | Astra House
On sale Jul 16, 2024 | 320 Pages | 9781662601736
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WINNER of the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

"For a tough-guy book about tough guys, this is a work of almost unerring tenderness. If its subtitle promises “redemption,” the book itself delivers something more honest: stories about people broken by powers larger than they are and who nonetheless find the will to fight on." — Ben Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review

"Katz has constructed a riveting and masterful urban narrative."
—Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA’s most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang’s shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing. And so, incredibly, Giovanni rises from the dead, determined to both seek redemption for his unforgivable crime and take down the gang who drove him to do it.

With The Rent Collectors, Jesse Katz has built a teeth clenching and breathless narrative that explicates the difficult and proud lives of undocumented black market workers who are being extorted by the gangs and fined by the city of LA—in other words, exploited by two sets of rent collectors.
  • WINNER | 2024
    L.A. Times Book Prize (Current Interest)
  • FINALIST | 2025
    PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
© Eric Nazarian
Jesse Katz is a former Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles magazine writer whose honors include the James Beard Foundation’s M. F. K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, PEN Center USA’s Literary Journalism Award, a National Magazine Award nomination, and two shared Pulitzer Prizes. His writing has appeared in the anthologies Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Writing, and Best American Sports Writing. As a volunteer with InsideOUT Writers,  he has mentored incarcerated teenagers at Central Juvenile Hall and the former California Youth Authority. His first book, The Opposite Field, was set in LA’s immigrant suburbs. View titles by Jesse Katz

About

WINNER of the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize

"For a tough-guy book about tough guys, this is a work of almost unerring tenderness. If its subtitle promises “redemption,” the book itself delivers something more honest: stories about people broken by powers larger than they are and who nonetheless find the will to fight on." — Ben Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review

"Katz has constructed a riveting and masterful urban narrative."
—Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times

Baby-faced teen Giovanni Macedo is desperate to find belonging in one of LA’s most predatory gangs, the Columbia Lil Cycos—so desperate that he agrees to kill an undocumented Mexican street vendor. The vendor, Francisco Clemente, had been refusing to give in to the gang’s shakedown demands. But Giovanni botches the hit, accidentally killing a newborn instead. The overlords who rule the Lil Cycos from a Supermax prison 1,000 miles away must be placated and Giovanni is lured across the border where, in turn, the gang botches his killing. And so, incredibly, Giovanni rises from the dead, determined to both seek redemption for his unforgivable crime and take down the gang who drove him to do it.

With The Rent Collectors, Jesse Katz has built a teeth clenching and breathless narrative that explicates the difficult and proud lives of undocumented black market workers who are being extorted by the gangs and fined by the city of LA—in other words, exploited by two sets of rent collectors.

Awards

  • WINNER | 2024
    L.A. Times Book Prize (Current Interest)
  • FINALIST | 2025
    PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction

Author

© Eric Nazarian
Jesse Katz is a former Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles magazine writer whose honors include the James Beard Foundation’s M. F. K. Fisher Distinguished Writing Award, PEN Center USA’s Literary Journalism Award, a National Magazine Award nomination, and two shared Pulitzer Prizes. His writing has appeared in the anthologies Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Writing, and Best American Sports Writing. As a volunteer with InsideOUT Writers,  he has mentored incarcerated teenagers at Central Juvenile Hall and the former California Youth Authority. His first book, The Opposite Field, was set in LA’s immigrant suburbs. View titles by Jesse Katz

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