In this book, John Kraniauskas uses close examinations of a number of modern and contemporary Latin American and North American novels and films to highlight the relationship between such texts and their regional cultural, political, and social contexts. Studies of a novel by James Ellroy and the TV series enable Kraniauskas to consider how ideas developed in one context can be used to explain experiences in another; he also explores an ongoing shift from texts that are centered on the state and its actions to those in which other groups come to the fore. Throughout, there’s a useful emphasis on the cultural experience of money, and how it can be traced through a wide variety of texts and cultural productions.