Ramin Bahrani

When a single father Dennis Nash is evicted from his home, his only chance to win it back is to go to work for Rick Carver, the charismatic and ruthless businessman who evicted him in the first place. It's a deal-with-the-devil that provides security for his family; but as Nash falls deeper into Carver's web, he finds his situation grows more brutal and dangerous than he ever imagined.

Willets Point, Queens, an industrial sliver of automotive-repair shops that remains perpetually at risk of being redeveloped off the map. It2s within this precarious ecosystem that twelve-year-old Ale must grow up fast, hustling in the neighborhood chop shops to build a more stable life for himself and his sister even as their tenuous circumstances force each to compete with other struggling people and make desperate decisions.

After his mother's sudden death, Socrates, a 15-year-old living on the margins of São Paulo's coast, must survive on his own while coming to terms with his grief.