All Involved audiobook

…this whole entire scene says the same to me as it says to every other knucklehead who ever thought bad thoughts across this whole city: now’s your fucking day, homie. Felicdades, you won the lottery! Go out there and get wild, it says. Come and take what you can, it says. If you’re bad enough, if you’re strong enough, come out and take it. Devil’s night in broad daylight, I call it. At 3:15pm on April 29, 1992, a Simi Valley jury found the police officers who had beaten the crap out of Rodney King, on what was certainly one of the first viral videos, not guilty. At 6:45pm, as news of the verdict spread, Los Angeles exploded with rage. For most of the next week large swaths of the city burned, almost four thousand buildings, with property damage in excess of a billion dollars. Stores were looted. Dozens died, and when the LA Police Department was unable to stem the violence, the National Guard was called in. In many cases police and security personnel stood around as stores were torched and/or looted, a close-to-home reminder of what US troops in Baghdad had done in 1991 when the locals were making off with sundry public property and untold national treasures. Rioting is messy. Stuff happens. The prolonged unrest, called an uprising by some, was a reaction not only to the jury’s decision, but, for many, to a lifetime of duress.Cops beating Rodney King – from the Guardian Ryan Gattis, who, among other things, is part of a street art project in LA, got considerable insight into what had gone on in 1992 from other members of that group, folks who had been present for the experience. The result is a stunning piece of work, as Guernica was for the Spanish Civil War, so All Involved is for the LA Uprising, a complex, horrifying, moving portrait of a city at war with itself.Picasso’s world-famous mural depicts the horrors of the Spanish Civil WarThe book is divided into six parts, one for each day of the riot. Each part is sub-divided into two or three chapters, one for each the 17 characters whose tales are told. The primary character in each chapter is presented in first person, and Gattis does an excellent job of preserving their individuality. Ernesto Vera, a food worker with a sophisticated palate, aspires to opening his own restaurant. Straight arrow. Keeps his nose clean. Is kind to the less fortunate. A good, no, a very good guy. That does not matter to some. What matters is that he is brother to Ray, aka Lil Mosco, who is very much not a very good guy. Ray managed to shoot a woman while trying to kill someone else. Since Ray cannot be found, since direct revenge cannot be taken by the woman’s family, Ernie will have to do. From this spark the fire grows.Ernie lived with his sixteen-year-old sister, Lupe, and Big Fe, the leader of a local gang. Big Fe is the general, the warlord, and justice for killing Ernie will be meted out. We see each of the players as they wend their way through this six-day-long drama. A bit player here is featured there. The parts connect. We get to see events from several angles. It is like looking at a holographic image. As you change perspective the image shifts. We are shown individual motivations. This event takes place because of a prior event, but the new event results in subsequent ripples. And on it goes. Ernie’s Last Ride – from Gattis’s siteThe primary media focus for the events concerned black rage at injustice. But the Latino population in 1992 was almost as large as the black population. Gattis focuses primarily on the former community here, in the Los Angeles County city of Lynwood. Add to the problems blacks have with the police the potential for many Hispanics who are in the country illegally to be deported. In The Divide Matt Taibbi offered a pretty detailed look at how the unequal treatment dealt out by the criminal justice system has created a large segment of America that has a lot more in common with the West Bank than it does with Beverly Hills. It is not surprising, that a prolonged violent reaction might take place in response to a dramatic legal slap in the face. But the conflagration of violence offered cover to many with other motivations. They think it’s sad, some kind of thoughtless, primal rage thing. It’s not. It’s mostly planned and it’s one of three things—grudge, mayhem, or insurance…It’s grudge if one guy doesn’t like the other guy for whatever reason, so he takes advantage of the chaos to do something about it, so even the race stuff, like what the blacks are doing to the Koreans, goes here. It’s mayhem if you’re deliberately setting it for the heck of it, or if you’re trying to cover a crime, or using it as a distraction to draw emergency assistance elsewhere so you can commit a crime somewhere else, which the gangs definitely do…. The last and likeliest, it’s insurance if you’ve got a business in a run-down part of the city and it’s not making as much money as you want but you do have fire insurance and you’ve been paying hefty premiums on that policy for damn near too long and then one day the racist cops get acquitted and all of a sudden up pops the opportunity to torch your own premises and get away with it—all you have to do is blame gangs or looters, so why not? Wars are fought in the smoke-filled nights, personal, gang-related, mindless-rage-based. Ordnance fills the air like Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, L.A as Walpurgisnacht, with witches and demons of all sorts throwing flames, dousing with accelerant, and casting dark spells. A place where it is not uncommon for firefighters to find bullets on their rigs, where a police escort is needed to keep them from being shot while putting out fires. There are scenes that are reminiscent of Mad Max, as those driving fire-trucks know better than to stop when someone walks into their lane. Any rig that does will come under immediate assault. One attack on firefighters is resonant with the real world attack on Reginald Denny. You are there. So how, in all the mayhem, in all the violence, in all the death and destruction can we find some humanity? Gattis may have created a dark portrait of a time and place, but his people are much more than kindling. He takes time with each of his many characters to build, to show where they came from, how they got to where they are, to understand their motivations, their dreams. It is true that for some, all they want is to become even more dangerous than they already are. But there is profound humanity on display as well. A tagger is shown as an artist, a nurse dreams of love, a gang member with CSI skills wonders what else there might be for him in the world. Other gang members connect with old cinema, surprising music, one with his cat, Teeny. There are plenty of pure black hats to go around, but Gattis mixes large dollops of color as well. There are people you can feel for here, and not just the studly Dudley Do-right fireman, or the compassionate nurse. Not all the burned can be healed. Some, as awful as they seem, shouldn’t be. Others might be true citizens if given a chance. Ryan Gattis from his siteGattis drops in relevant information through various means. Intel on the number of guns in L.A. is truly alarming, or should be. Information on the number of gang members versus the number of police is frightening. Gangs do not come into existence in a vacuum. Where safety is assured, and enforced, where the population feels protected, attended to, respected, gangs cannot flourish. It is when there is inadequate protection that people turn to other forms of self-preservation. The growth of gangs in Los Angeles and other cities is a testament to the failure of law enforcement to do what is needed, and reflects also the failure of political leaders to provide the resources public safety departments need to do their jobs, the failure of leaders to nurture a vision of the future with educational and career opportunities of the legal sort. There’s a helicopter overhead—looks like Channel 7—shining a light down on us like we’re at the bottom of a deep, dark hole. The people who live around here, they know what that actually feels like. They know how ugly life can get. Everybody else, the people sitting at home, watching this unfold on television, they have no idea. Those are the people shocked by the riots. They can’t comprehend them because they don’t understand the other side. They don’t understand what happens to people with no money who live in a neighborhood where crime is actually a viable career path when there are no other opportunities, and I’m not excusing it or condoning it or saying it can’t be avoided, but I’m saying that’s how it is. Ryan Gattis has written a masterpiece. A soldier-by soldier, bullet-by-bullet, Molotov-by-Molotov look at a recurring tragedy in American history. You will smell the smoke, feel the heat and get an urge to bolt the doors and slip into some Kevlar. All Involved is one of the hottest books of the year. It is not to be missed. Review posted - 4/24/15Publication date - 4/7/2015=============================EXTRA STUFFLinks to the author’s personal and Twitter pages and to his transmedia workThis is a 30 minute chunk of the audio version, with a small bit of interview with Gattis at the frontThere is a bounty of musical links on the author’s site, but you will need to be signed in to spotify to listen. Here are a couple from that list available on youtube:Ride of the Valkyries Star Wars – Burning homestead on TattooineThese were not among the items on the author’s playlist Disco InfernoI Love LAYou can see 1:23 of the 12 minute Rodney King tape on George Holliday’s (the guy who shot it) siteThe NY Times review by Michiko Kakutani is worth a look

You grow up in the same neighborhood as me, one with a gun store that sells single bullets for twenty-five cents to anybody with bad thoughts and a quarter, then you might end up the same way.this book is like law and order: street justice (which is a show i would totally watch please)its focus is on the six days of rioting in LA following the rodney king verdict, and how, with law enforcement distracted and overwhelmed by the looting and burning and general mayhem, the opportunity for gangs to settle scores and enact vengeance for grievances suffered was wide-open.these are their stories this is some fine crime writing here. and it's getting all the expected comparisons: richard price, the wire, george pelecanos, dennis lehane, hubert selby jr, etc etc. and, naturally, it's getting the expected criticisms - the ones where a white dude writing intimately about the innerworkings of a chicano gang is scrutinized for "authenticity" or whatever. as though he is passing this off as a memoir. as though stephen king ever met an actual vampire. i find these kind of criticisms to be very tedious - if you are a good writer and you do your research and you write something that feels true to the reader, you've done your job and your racial background shouldn't matter. richard price, george pelecanos, david simon - those are some very white gentlemen, but they are good at what they do and it's silly to moan about authenticity when discussing fiction. david simon is a personal hero of mine, and there are many ways in which this is similar to the wire, most notably in its tracking of action/reaction and the density of its reverberations. over the course of the novel, there will be a series of retributive actions viewed from a number of perspectives, and even the smallest details might be revisited later to provide context or weight as the tragic events play out. it's powerful, gritty writing both in its characters and its devastating violence, but the style is more journalistic than emotional for the most part. this book is broken up into the six days the riots occurred (and is apparently being published digitally in six installments before the full book is available), and is presented through the perspectives of multiple characters, many of whom will not make it out of their chapter(s) alive. it begins with the gruesome murder of someone who is not "involved;" someone unaffiliated with a gang themselves, but related to someone who is very much involved. it is a payback killing for an earlier incident, and it is naïvely assumed it will end there.We didn't get who we wanted, not Lil Mosco, but we took one of theirs and it was even. My lil sister, your big brother. Fair, I thought. That's it, I thought.but as one character later observes:"Somebody's always related to somebody, huh?…Or homies with somebody?"and this is the horrible ouroboros of revenge - murder leads to murder leads to murder and it never ends until everyone is dead.this is more of a slice-of-life than a comprehensive overview of LA during the riots - it is a small-scale story whose focus is primarily upon the chicano gangs operating at the periphery of the nucleus of the riots. there are many voices, both "involved" and not: a nurse, a firefighter, a drug dealer, a tagger, a homeless man, but it's about the ways in which violence affects and "involves" an entire community, not just individuals who have chosen to participate.the focus may be small, but it is still a wide spectrum. from those who see the riots as opportunity:I punch the radio on. I go up the dial and down. Everywhere, it's news, news, news. Reports. People complaining like it's not the greatest day on earth, but like it's a disaster or something.to those who have to clean up after the fact… there's a hidden America inside the one we portray to the world, and only a small group of people ever actually see it. Some of us are locked into it by birth or geography, but the rest of us just work here. Doctors, nurses, firemen, cops - we know it. We see it. We negotiate with death where we work because that's just part of the job. We see its layers, its unfairness, its unavoidability. Still, we fight that losing battle. We try to maneuver around it, occasionally even steal from it.it's a very strong, relevant debut, and while it's not what you could call "entertaining," it's definitely absorbing. and important. it's violent and sad and upsetting, but it's not without hope for some of the characters, and it felt authentic enough to me. not bad, for a white guy.oh, and maggie liked it, too. come to my blog!

In theory, I thought this was a brilliant idea, and in many ways it really worked, while in others, I felt it could have been improved. I liked the multiple POVs, but it was maybe a few too many. The story moves forward at a good pace, but after a while, it feels repetitive. In a sense, that really emphasizes the fear, confusion, frustration, and anger felt during this time, but it also prevented me from really connecting to the story. I am a character driven reader, and though some voices/characters moved me a lot, several others fell a little flat for me. That all being so, the overriding message of the book was valuable and sadly, though it takes place almost thirty years ago, still remains disappointingly relevant. For that reason alone, it's worth a read.Find my book reviews and more at http://www.princessandpen.com

Set against the backdrop of the 1992 LA riots, All Involved begins with a shocking act of violence. Ernesto, an innocent brother of two Chicano gang members is brutally murdered on his way home from work. The ensuing story of revenge is told via a series of interlinked chapters by a wide variety of characters caught up in the chaos - drug-dealers, firefighters, nurses, marines and the homeless.I was continually reminded of Grand Theft Auto as I read All Involved. When the riots kicked off after the Rodney King verdict and lawlessness prevailed, the LA gangs saw this as an opportunity to loot, raise hell and settle old scores (much like the aforementioned video game). So it's not surprising that the violence in this book is frequent and horrific. I never found it gratuitous though, Gattiss uses these graphic scenes adeptly to make a point about the ferocious, treacherous life many of these people choose to lead. He is clearly an immensely talented writer, the way the stories are deftly linked displays a tremendous amount of skill and the book is incredibly well researched. It is not exactly an uplifting read - there are few chinks of light in the desperate gloom. But All Involved is a powerful, gripping novel and an intense account of a city tearing itself to pieces.

Set in L.A. following the 1992 Rodney King verdict,t there were six days of violent, fiery riots, the story reveals the tapestry of people from all sorts of perspectives. When the mayhem of the riots overwhelmed and law enforcement and fire fighters efforts, gangs (and others) saw it as on open invitation to act lawlessly to settle scores and deliver "justice" to deserving enemies. Each chapter was about a different person. The level of violence and involvement in the murders, looting, fire-setting started out pretty grim and intense. The level of bad-ass behavior and attitudes gradually deescalated, and each person was pretty unique. Some were bystanders, some were first-responders, many rationalized their acts of cold-blooded murder. Some were committed gang members, some wanted to get out of that life. One thing that struck me time and time again what how fatalistic many of the individuals were--they were willing to take great risks in order to kill some "deserving" individuals--but felt that if they "bought it" (ie., were killed) then it was just their time to die. The audio version was pretty good, with credible voices and accents for different characters. One thing that helped me was my Overdrive audio version let me see the name of each chapter's main person. That always helps, but because so many of the names were Spanish, it really helped me to know the person's name.

All Involved starts on the first day of the 1992 LA riots, but not with anything apparently related to Rodney King.Instead it begins with the murder of Ernesto, an innocent victim connected to a gang feud purely through blood.His death then sets in motion a chain of events with the chaos caused by the riots allowing for violent score-settling among rival gangs.Gattis tells the story through 17 different narrators in a kind of relay race to the finish. They range from Ernesto's sister and other gang members, to a nurse, a firefighter and a member of the National Guard.This challenging task is executed well, and the voices are skillfully delineated, though inevitably there are times when you wish you could rejoin one of the earlier characters.There is some beauty amidst the bloody violence, but this is a bleak book. Many of the characters, innocent and guilty, are trapped in a world of gang violence where there is little escape. Violence also appears to be the default response from the authorities if the chilling chapter narrated by the National Guardsman is to be believed. And All Involved does bear the mark of authenticity. Gattis has worked as a graffiti artist in these communities, and the book is at least partly based on interviews carried out with those who lived through the Rodney King riots. Although set in 1992, many of the social conditions it explores of course remain unconquered in these communities.For me this made it an interesting fictional sibling to Jill Leovy's Ghettoside. It can never explore the sociology of the ghetto in the depth and nuance of a work like that, but by attaching some of the themes to a compelling narrative All Involved may at least reach more readers.

Lu en français: Six joursSi vous trouvez que vous dormez trop bien la nuit, ce roman est pour vous. Pendant les six jours d'émeute qui ont mis Los Angeles à feu et à sang en 1992, après l'acquittement des policiers qui ont tué Rodney King, six jours où les quartiers dits "chauds" de L.A. se sont transformés en champs de bataille, l'auteur fait évoluer plusieurs personnages qui se passent la parole pour nous raconter ces jours sans lois. Leurs coeurs battent au rythme du PCP, de la rage, du goût du sang ou de la soif de pouvoir, mais aussi de la peur. De la chola au taggeur, de l'infirmière au chef de gang, on vit ces six jours à un rythme trépidant, et on ressort halluciné de cette plongée. Ouf.Vie et hiérarchie des gangs, règlements de compte, logique et honneur de la rue, trafic de drogues, rêves de domination ou de liberté... C'est violent, sanglant, enragé. Un genre de roman western-guerilla urbain qui vous secoue comme un prunier. Si le français argotique vous enlève toute joie de vivre, je vous encourage vivement à lire la version originale en anglais, parce que la traduction est parfois quasi incompréhensible.

At the beginning, I imagine as in a blackexploitation movie of the 70s (the sublime Palm Grier). But here, the gangs are hispanics. All is in order. gangs follow their rules, they have a leader. They steal, kill, deal, but any breach in the rules of the gang is sanctioned. Outside, normal people, with other rules, other laws.And Rodney King, the riot. No more order, the reptilian brain governs. And the book takes a metaphysical dimension. The normal people kill, we cross the circles of hell. It is a choral novel or each speaks to describe the action. The book progresses seen by a character. The author did not abuse of typical words, just enough spanish terms. It is well written, real literature, not gonzo journalism. It is the paramilitary commando squad which is the messager of the last judgement. This book is the scenario for a great film.

I love the "grand tapestry of characters via multiple POVs" approach, only I wish Mr. Gattis had gone more Tom Wolfe and created a wider field of players in the 1992 L.A. riots instead of focusing so intently on a small Latinx crew straight outta Lynwood. Because, really, once you've been inside the mind of one hard-ass teenage gangbanger, you've pretty much been inside them all. Gattis also seems determined to extract some empathy for each and every gangsta that I'm not convinced they deserve, the same way I thought Paul Thomas Anderson overdid it with his dopey porn people in BOOGIE NIGHTS. And while I don't usually think of myself as a fascist pig, I really enjoyed the chapter here where the SWAT team goes in and stomps all the kids' asses. I guess the author would be pretty disappointed in me.

Vihan kadut on fiktiivinen kertomus jonka tosielämän alustana toimivat Los Angelesissa puhjenneet mellakat Rodney Kingin pahoinpitelijöiden vapautustuomion jälkeen vuonna 1992. Gattis kutoo tarinansa altmanilaiseen muotoon, jossa eri henkilöiden kokemukset viiden päivän ajan kietoutuvat toisiinsa, melko lohduttomaksi kuvaksi.Pääosa henkilökavalkadista on erilaisia jengiläisiä, joille yleinen anarkian tila mahdollistaa selvittämättä jääneiden välien korjaamista, yleistä ryöstelyä ja pakojakin. Muutama ääni annetaan yhteiskunnan koneiston toimijoille, jotka tekevät osansa tilanteen selvittämisessä.Kokonaiskuva Los Angelesista on lohduton. Kaupunki näyttäytyy todellisena viidakkona, josta lähes ainoa ulospääsy on kuolema. Gattisin kuvaama väkivalta on graafista ja sitä on paljon. Toivoa on vähän. Lajiltaan kirja on sujuvaa lukuproosaa, ja näin George Floydin vuonna jälleen valitettavan ajankohtainen.

All Involved is written to shock and it certainly does. This is a violent but hugely readable and powerful novel about the six days of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. The unrest was sparked by the acquittal of police officers for the brutal beating of a young black man Rodney King. Although fictional the book is based on eye-witness accounts and many researched facts. This makes it all the more real and unsettling.Ryan Gattis brings us 17 unflinching accounts of what occurred. The often frightening narratives come from individuals both directly involved in the riots and from some of those living or dying due to its consequences. He breaks it down into the 6 days as events unfold and links the connected short stories.As well as being a terrific and thrilling read it is also educational and thought provoking for those of us living our cosy ordered lives as peaceful law abiding citizens. The mentality of a few of the narrators is truly disturbing and sometimes horrific. The police are stretched and left unable to enforce the law in many parts of LA. The speed at which opportunity for lawlessness and repayment of gangland vendettas is seized upon is staggeringly swift. The writing is absorbing and opened my eyes to another world where there are people who are lacking in conscience, sense of community or humanity. Whether it’s down to economic, social or cultural reasons it is still hard to accept in a supposedly civilised society. You are left feeling concerned that similar events could occur in any major city given the right mix of circumstances.The story being told from so many peoples perspectives added to the interest and made it seem believable real. There are gang members looking for revenge, a nurse looking for love, a firefighter who cares, a drug dealer, a graffiti tagger, and a homeless man amongst others. Everyone is affected one way or another. Some will live and some won’t make it through. There are some positives to be taken from it, but mostly it’s dark and unnervingly harsh and brutal. Here is an insight into a small piece of American history that is beautiful written and shocking in its telling. If you can handle the violence then its gripping stuff and a highly recommended read.

4 tarkoittaa minulla huippuhyvää kirjaa.Fiktiivinen, mutta pitkäaikaiseen ja osallistuvaan taustatyöhön perustuva, episodiromaani Rodney Kingin pahoinpitelyn jälkeisistä mellakoista.Gattiksen kunnianhimo ja taito tätä kirjoittaessa todella säväyttää. Näkökulma jatkuu kertojasta toiseen. Suurin osa heistä on latinoja ja jengiläisiä. Tässä kirjassa ei todellakaan ole montaa hoodia, joilla haluaisin liikkua tai montaa henkilöä, joiden kanssa haluaisin olla tekemisissä.Väkivaltaa, kostoa, epätoivoa - toki myös veljeyttä ja sisaruutta. Ja muutamalle toisenlainen elämä. Se kyllä helpotti!Tämä kirja haisi verelle ja aivokudoksille, tuntui uhkaavalta ja ennakoi kuolemaa jo nuorella iällä. Mielipuolinen ja synkkä kirja, mutta vaikka fiktio onkin - surullisen totta.