About the Book
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.
About the Author :
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.
Review :
WINNER of the 2024 Los Angeles Times Book Prize - Current Interest Category
Finalist for the CALIBA Golden Poppy Book Award in Nonfiction and PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction
A Top Social Justice & Advocacy Title for the 2025 In the Margins Book Award List
"In Macedo, Katz found the story of a lifetime . . . For a tough-guy book about tough guys, this is a work of almost unerring tenderness."
—Ben Ehrenreich, The New York Times Book Review
"Katz has constructed a riveting and masterful urban narrative."
—Lorraine Berry, Los Angeles Times
"[The Rent Collectors is] a gripping ethnographic history disguised as a true-crime book . . . Katz's book is more than just a narrative of a nearly unbelievable true story—it's an incredible history and ethnography of MacArthur Park, its street vendors, its gang rackets, and the way that America's interlocking immigration, economic, and criminal-justice systems conspire to ruin lives. As much as anything, I was astounded by the depth and quality of Katz's reporting."
—Max Read
"The Rent Collectors is a brilliant, beautiful sprawl of detective work, a deeply reported and rendered nonfiction epic that requires us to look closely at the ramifications of decades of failed immigration policy, as well as the human loss it continues to leave in its wake."
—Erik Himmelsbach-Weinstein, Alta Journal
"A phenomenal work of sociology and anthropology . . . this book works its strongest magic in the evocation of the undocumented lives of immigrants in MacArthur Park."
—Nic Cavell, Rain Taxi
★ "Katz writes with a propulsive verve, his prose both evocative and raw ... Tackling immigration, the prison system, city ordinances, and the complicated bonds of family, the experience of reading The Rent Collectors is white-knuckle and, ultimately, wholly transformative."
—Jeff Connelly, Booklist (starred review)
★ "A searing account of gang violence and its consequences ... Macedo's grim story, expertly documented by Katz, cries for a documentary series to follow his fortunes as, after years in prison, he strives for redemption. A masterful work of true crime—and, to be sure, true punishment."
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
★ "With admirable clarity and compassion, Katz unravels a complex narrative that has no easy answers ... Abstaining from painting heroes or villains, Katz offers instead a plethora of thoughtful, nuanced profiles and a zoomed-out view of immigrant L.A., its street vendors, its gangs, and its intricacies. The result is relentless, multi-faceted, and incisive."
—Julia Kastner, Shelf Awareness (starred review)
"Devastating . . . Katz expertly traces the tale’s jaw-dropping twists and turns, complementing the intrigue with a deeply empathetic portrait of Macedo and scrupulous interviews with law enforcement. This pulls back the curtain on an appalling tragedy."
—Publishers Weekly
"In The Rent Collectors, a fascinating and compassionate slice-of-life true crime narrative, journalist Jesse Katz explores 18th Street—its history and the system of power within the gang—the players in the tragic shooting, the intersection of new immigrant survival and gang life, and the aftermath of the crime."
—Hannah, bookseller, Mrs. Dalloway's
"The Rent Collectors will not leave you where it found you. Its searing, breathtaking detail always invites you to a reverence for complexity. This book helps us all to no longer settle for the one dimensional view again. Katz taps into our ache to find our shared humanity and indeed discover compassion as the answer to every question. This is urban reportage at its finest and most human."
—Gregory Boyle, founder of Homeboy Industries and bestselling author of Tattoos on the Heart
"More than a work about a gang, Katz's book is a portrait of a city on the brink, a family in disarray, a criminal group on the rise, and the police's scramble to catch up. These dynamics swallow kids like Giovanni. But rather than break him, the experience remakes him. To his credit, Katz does not rely on stereotypical tropes. He gives us a raw, intimate, and brutal picture of gang life from the inside where escape is impossible and freedom is ephemeral."
—Steven Dudley, author of MS-13: The Making of America's Most Notorious Gang
"The Rent Collectors is a must-read book for our times. An insightful and deeply researched journey through the underbelly of LA, Jesse Katz has written a breathtaking true-crime narrative—one that you won't be able to put down."
—Gus Garcia-Roberts, author of Jimmy the King
"For longer than seems humanly possible, Jesse Katz has been one of our greatest chroniclers of L.A.’s street underworld. So it’s no surprise that The Rent Collectors is a tale tuned fine, and filled with some exquisitely cinematic characters – Mexican Mafia honchos, baby mammas, cops, MacArthur Park street vendors, and a lost kid with devil horn tattoos. But I will admit that its appearance causes me some dismay, because, damn, I wish I’d written it."
—Sam Quinones, bestselling author of Dreamland and The Least of Us
"In this lyrical, intelligent, and deeply literary work, Jesse Katz takes us on an unforgettable journey into the mind and life of a forgotten, reviled man. Like a character from Dostoevsky, Giovanni Macedo is a troubled sinner thrust into the cruelty of an urban landscape, a world Katz recreates with boundless compassion, and with painstaking and unflinching detail. Rent Collectors is a landmark of true-crime writing about the city that helped give birth to the genre, Los Angeles."
—Héctor Tobar, bestselling author of Deep Down Dark and Our Migrant Souls
"Few authors or books are able to take a reader deep into the daily machinations of gang life as expertly as Jesse Katz has done with The Rent Collectors. The young, naive, and damaged Giovanni Macedo is at the center of this story of criminal transgression and redemption, but in telling the tale, the humanity of the author's perspective envelopes a cast of characters on all sides of the law, from the Latino gang underworld of Southern California to the scheming nooks and crannies of the the justice system. With insight and compassion, Katz explores the criminal pathology of the Columbia Lil Cycos gang in the McArthur Park area of Los Angeles, but he also elevates this story into the classic realm of great human drama from Dostoevsky to Mailer. The narrative is compelling, and the writing is first-rate. Prepare yourself for a relentless, exciting read."
—T.J. English, best-selling author of The Westies, Havana Nocturne and Dangerous Rhythms
