About this item
A propulsive and ambitious novel as electrifying as The Wire, from a writer hailed as the West Coast's Richard Price - a mesmerizing epic of crime and opportunity, race, revenge, and loyalty, set in the chaotic streets of South Central L.A. in the wake of one of the most notorious and incendiary trials of the 1990sAt 3:15 p.m. on April 29, 1992, a jury acquitted three white Los Angeles Police Department officers charged with using excessive force to subdue a black man named Rodney King, and failed to reach a verdict on the same charges involving a fourth officer. Less than two hours later, the city exploded in violence that lasted six days. In nearly 121 hours, fifty-three lives were lost. But there were even more deaths unaccounted for: violence that occurred outside of active rioting sites by those who used the chaos to viciously settle old scores.A gritty and cinematic work of fiction, All Involved vividly re-creates this turbulent and terrifying time, set in a sliver of Los Angeles largely ignored by the media during the riots. Ryan Gattis tells seventeen interconnected first-person narratives that paint a portrait of modern America itself - laying bare our history, our prejudices, and our complexities. With characters that capture the voices of gang members, firefighters, graffiti kids, and nurses caught up in these extraordinary circumstances, All Involved is a literary tour de force that catapults this edgy writer into the ranks of such legendary talents as Dennis Lehane and George V. Higgins.
About the Author
Ryan Gattis is a writer & educator. His most recent novel, SAFE, is a heist thriller about a DEA safecracker gone rogue, ripping off gang-owned drug safes in order to help citizens hurt during the market crash of 2008. It's essentially Robin Hood Noir. The book is set in the same world of South Central L.A. as his previous novel, ALL INVOLVED: A Novel of the 1992 L.A. Riots, which was grounded in 2.5 years of research & background spent with former Latino gang members, firefighters, nurses, & other L.A. citizens who lived through it. ALL INVOLVED won the American Library Association's Alex Award & the Lire Award for Noir of the Year in France; translated into 11 languages, it has been called "a high-octane speedball of a read" by The New York Times & its film rights were acquired by HBO. Gattis is also the author of KUNG FU HIGH SCHOOL (Out 09/2017) . He lives and writes in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the street art crew UGLARworks & a founding board member of 1888, a Southern California literary arts non-profit.
