The Hollywood Kid: The Violent Life and Violent Death of an MS-13 Hitman

As a boy, Miguel Ángel Tobar fled a small town in El Salvador torn apart by warring guerillas and US-backed death squads. As a teen in Los Angeles, he fought discrimination and beatings by joining a gang--MS-13. By the time the US deported him to San Salvador, The Hollywood Kid joined a wave of thousands of US-bred gangsters, whose violence--in concert with corrupt offiicals--have in turn helped propel new waves of refugees.

The incomparable Salvadoran journalist Oscar Martinez got to know the Hollywood Kid and met with him as he first turned on MS-13, killing gang members, and then in turn was assassinated by other gang members. In intensely vivid scenes, Martinez and his anthropologist brother Juan tell the story of a violent life and death--and of the geopolitical forces that propelled a country into becoming one of the most violent on earth.

About the Author :
Óscar Martínez writes for ElFaro.net, the first online newspaper in Latin America. El Faro was awarded in 2016 the Gabriel García Márquez Prize for Excellence in Journalism. In 2008, Martínez won the Fernando Benítez National Journalism Prize in Mexico, in 2009, he was awarded the Human Rights Prize at the José Simeón Cañas Central American University in El Salvador and in 2016 he was awarded the Freedom of Press Award by the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Maria Moors Cabot Prize. In 2019, he will be a Global Visiting Fellow at the Columbia Journalism School.

Juan José Martínez d´Aubuisson is a sociocultural anthropologist from Universidad Nacional de El Salvador. He has studied violence and gangs since 2008. He has been a lecturer at Universidad Mónica Herrera and has worked as a consultant for several institutions such as Action on Armed Violence (England), Unicef, Soleterre (Italy) and American University (United States). A prolific writer, Juan José has authored Ver, oír y callar: Un año con la Mara Salvatrucha 13 (Aura Ediciones 2013).

Review :
(El Niño de Hollywood) is a revelation. As they track a single tragic life, Los Hermanos Martínez delve deep into El Salvador's tortured labyrinth, into the macabre working of the Mara Salvatruches, into the sinister consequence of failed US policies, and in the process recover what Neil Smith called the lost history of the American Empire. This is reportage made literature, darkness made light, and one of the most important books of investigative journalism I've read in years. As the poet William Blake famously put it, 'general forms have their vitality in particulars, and every particular is a Man'. The Martinez D'Aubuisson brothers' beautifully written account of the life and death of the feared gangster El Niño de Hollywood, based on hours and hours of interviews with him and those close to him, starkly reveals the underlying dynamics of the Central American gang phenomenon in vivid and insightful detail. The graceful, incisive writing lifts The Beast from being merely an impressive feat of reportage into the realm of literature. Mr. Martínez has produced something that is an honorable successor to enduring works like George Orwell's The Road to Wigan Pier or Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives. Martínez dives into the underworld of his subjects, navigating barrios that police won't enter, spending days and nights with gang members. His methods resemble war reporting and his prose is cinematic . The collection's strength lies in his ability to write the hell out of his material. Like Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family, it skimps on statistics and analysis, instead relying on description alone to create a world that captures the reader and doesn't let her go. One of the stories, 'El Niño Hollywood's Death Foretold,' evokes Gabriel García Márquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Like the beloved Colombian writer, Martínez pens scenes that are suspenseful, moving, and vivid. Óscar Martínez deserves praise not only for his efforts, and for what he writes about, but because he writes so very well. Martínez's credentials for writing about this ignored human tide are impeccable: his first book, The Beast, drew on eight trips clinging to the roof of the infamous migrants' train through Mexico, chronicling their desperation in grippingly graphic detail. His new book, A History of Violence, takes a step back to explore what the migrants heading to the US are running away from the unflinching cameos it paints offer a chilling portrait of corruption, unimaginable brutality and impunity. A powerful storyteller and his approach to investigative journalism is closer to anthropological immersion. One of the bravest writers in Latin America, if not the world. He's also one of the best Masterfully told. The Hollywood Kid is a gripping read, thoroughly researched and dramatically conveyed. The Martínez brothers' book tells the story of an MS-13 hitman known as the Hollywood Kid. He was recruited to the gang in El Salvador by a twenty-year-old former member of the National Police, escaped the civil war to California, was deported in 1994, then began his own clica (clique, or gang chapter) in Salvadoran coffee country.