Angeltown - Paperback

by Joseph Callahan (Author)

In the mid-21st century, Los Angeles is called Angeltown due to English only laws. The poor, working people and people of color are controlled by the surveillance system and the school-to-prison pipeline. Thelonious Babar, a brilliant high school senior organizes a student walkout. Authorities brutally come down on the rally and Theo is killed.

Junior Chava Chavez, a strong and athletic young woman who cares about Theo and family more than her education, is one of the few attendees of the rally to escape the State Auto-Defense Force's attack.

In another part of Angeltown, we meet young teacher Jane Caitlin Winston, whose whole life has prepared her to work for the system that Theo fought against. We see her as a child star and then as a teacher overseeing an oppressive educational curriculum. Jane fails in her duty as a teacher and is confined in a basement apartment where she is drugged daily, and her blood is taken without her knowledge.

Downtown, Jane encounters Chava and runs in her drug induced fear as if she has encountered the devil. Chava follows her, clearly trying to help and sees Jane use her palm to enter her apartment. Inside, Chava bandages Jane's bloody feet and offers her some water. Jane realizes it's not her water, the water with the narcotics she is addicted to.

Chava learns it was Jane who informed about the rally, got the people killed, including her beloved Theo when suddenly Jane's voice comes out of her computer, "The rally is on the fourteenth at the library." Jane is shocked at hearing her voice. Chava, who once sympathized with Jane, could no longer. A struggle ensues and Jane is knocked unconscious. An investigative team arrives at the apartment and finds Jane's body with her palm cut off, used by Chava to escape.