Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucedo are hardworking, undocumented employees at the Detmer Foods chicken plant in Springdale, Arkansas, just a stoneâs throw from the trailer park where theyâve lived together for seven years.
While dealing with personal tragedies of their own, the young couple endures the brutal, dehumanizing conditions at the plant in exchange for barebones pay.
When the plant manager, Luke Jackson, fires Edwin to set an example for the rest of the workersâand to show the higherups that heâs ready for a major promotionâEdwin is determined to get revenge on Luke and his wife, Mimi, a new mother who stays at home with her six-month-old son. Edwinâs impulsive action sets in motion a devastating chain of events that illuminates the deeply entrenched power dynamics between those who revel at the top and those who toil at the bottom.
From the nationally bestselling and Edgar Awardâwinning author of Donât Know Tough and Ozark Dogs comes another edge-of-your-seat noir thriller that exposes the dark, bloody heart of life on the margins in the American South and the bleak underside of a bygone American Dream.
âTaut, harrowing, and charged with profound insight, Broiler pushes four unforgettable characters to the brim. What happens when hard work isnât enough? Exploring class, ambition, mobility, and desire, Eli Cranor uses bolts of linguistic electricity to show how the things we want can sometimes blind us.ââDanya Kukafka, author of Notes on an Execution