Lorenzo Carcaterra (Author of Sleepers)

Lorenzo Carcaterra鈥檚 Followers (679)

Lorenzo Carcaterra

Born

in Hell's Kitchen, New York, The United States

October 16, 1954

Website

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Number-one New York Times bestselling author Lorenzo Carcaterra's highly successful career spans more than 25 years of writing for the diverse fields of fiction, non-fiction, television, and film.

Born and raised in New York's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Carcaterra landed his first job in the newspaper business as a copy boy for The New York Daily News in 1976. He worked his way up to entertainment reporter before leaving the paper in 1982, heading for the green pastures of then-Time Inc. and TV-Cable Week, as senior writer. Nine months later, the magazine folded, leaving him unemployed. A four-month stint at People magazine was followed by an odyssey of writing for a string of start-up publications鈥擯icture Week, Entertainment Tonight Magaz Number-one New York Times bestselling author Lorenzo Carcaterra's highly successful career spans more than 25 years of writing for the diverse fields of fiction, non-fiction, television, and film.

Born and raised in New York's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Carcaterra landed his first job in the newspaper business as a copy boy for The New York Daily News in 1976. He worked his way up to entertainment reporter before leaving the paper in 1982, heading for the green pastures of then-Time Inc. and TV-Cable Week, as senior writer. Nine months later, the magazine folded, leaving him unemployed. A four-month stint at People magazine was followed by an odyssey of writing for a string of start-up publications鈥擯icture Week, Entertainment Tonight Magazine, Special Reports Magazine鈥攁nd freelancing for dozens of others鈥擳he New York Times Sunday Magazine, Newsday Sunday Magazine, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, and Twilight Zone Magazine among them.

In 1988, Carcaterra turned to television as a Creative Consultant for the syndicated weekly series Cop Talk: Behind the Shield, produced by Grosso-Jacobson Productions. That led to a job as Managing Editor for the CBS weekly series Top Cops, also with Grosso-Jacobson Productions. Running for four seasons, from 1990 to 1994, the show is still in syndication today worldwide. In addition, he worked on a dozen other pilots, one of which鈥撯€揝ecret Service (NBC)鈥撯€搈ade it to air. It was while at Grosso-Jacobson Productions that Carcaterra wrote and published his first two books颅, A Safe Place and Sleepers.

First published in hardcover in 1993, A Safe Place: The True Story of a Father, a Son, a Murder, attracted widespread critical acclaim, with Newsweek calling it, 鈥渦nforgettable鈥攁 remarkable book.鈥� Currently in its 14th printing, it has been sold to 11 foreign countries and has sold close to 220,000 copies.

The 1995 publication of Sleepers, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, catapulted Carcaterra to national attention. Sold to 35 foreign countries and now in its 38th printing in the United States, the book has sales exceeding 1.8 million copies. In 1996, Sleepers was made into a feature film starring Brad Pitt, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Bacon, Minnie Driver, and Jason Patric. Carcaterra served as co-producer on the project, which was directed by Academy Award winner Barry Levinson. To date, the movie has earned in excess of $500 million worldwide in combined box-office, video, DVD, and TV sales.

Carcaterra made a smooth transition into writing fiction with his first novel, Apaches, a New York Times bestseller in both hardcover and paperback. Published in a 14 foreign countries, the book has sold more than 450,000 copies and been optioned by producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

He followed that with Gangster, published in hardcover in 2001. The book has sold over 375,000 copies since its 2002 release as a Mass Market Paperback. The novel has been optioned by Joe Roth and been sold to 15 foreign countries.

Carcaterra then wrote Street Boys, a World War II saga inspired by an incident which occurred in Naples, Italy, in 1943. Warner Bros. and Bel-Air Entertainment bought the rights to the story in March 2001 before it was written, and developed the project for director Barry Levinson. Carcaterra wrote the screenplay. The paperback was released in July, 2003 and has since sold 150,000 copies.

Carcaterra's next novel Paradise City was published in hardcover by Ballantine in September 2004 with the paperback following a year later. To date, the novel has sold over 100,000 copies and was optioned by Fox Television to be developed as a weekly series.

In 2007, Carcaterra published Chasers, a sequel to his bestseller Apaches. The paperback version was published in the spring of 2008 and movie rights to the story are once again controlled by Jerry Bruckheimer Productions.

With that, Carcaterra took a different turn and has just completed hi ...more

Combine Editions
Lorenzo Carcaterra鈥檚 books

Average rating: 4.17 · 47,837 ratings · 4,045 reviews · 42 distinct works 鈥� Similar authors

	Sleepers 4.27 avg rating — 16,645 ratings — published 1995 — 28 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Gangster 4.17 avg rating — 3,487 ratings — published 2001 — 34 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Apaches (Apaches #1) 3.76 avg rating — 1,331 ratings — published 1997 — 38 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nonna Maria and the Case of the Missing Bride (Nonna Maria #1) 3.74 avg rating — 1,225 ratings — published 2022 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Street Boys 3.87 avg rating — 1,114 ratings — published 2002 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Wolf 3.58 avg rating — 1,174 ratings — published 2014 — 19 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Safe Place: The True Story of a Father, a Son, a Murder 3.92 avg rating — 849 ratings — published 1993 — 22 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Tin Badges (Tank Rizzo, #1) 3.97 avg rating — 762 ratings — published 2016 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Nonna Maria and the Case of the Stolen Necklace (Nonna Maria #2) 3.96 avg rating — 551 ratings — published 2023 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Payback (Tank Rizzo, #2) 3.96 avg rating — 504 ratings — published 2020 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Lorenzo Carcaterra…

Series by Lorenzo Carcaterra

Nonna Maria (3 books)
by

Lorenzo Carcaterra

3.83 avg rating — 2,096 ratings

Tank Rizzo (3 books)
by

Lorenzo Carcaterra

3.97 avg rating — 1,270 ratings

The Wolf (1 book)
by

Lorenzo Carcaterra

3.61 avg rating — 1,245 ratings

Quotes by Lorenzo Carcaterra (?)

“The night and the streets were ours and the future lay sparkling ahead.
And we thought we would know each other forever.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

tags: beautiful

15 likes

“We do many things we shouldn鈥檛 in the course of a life. It doesn鈥檛 make them right or wrong, just a part of who we are.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Street Boys

tags: life

14 likes

“Live then, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day God deigns to reveal the future to man, the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words; Wait and Hope.”
― Lorenzo Carcaterra, Sleepers

tags: book-quotes

11 likes

See all Lorenzo Carcaterra's quotes »

Polls

February Side Read Nominations ~ 1st Poll
Top 5 Books move onto Final Poll

The Secrets We Kept

by Lara Prescott

11 votes, 28.9%

The Ten Thousand Doors of January

by Alix E. Harrow

7 votes, 18.4%

Red at the Bone

by Jacqueline Woodson

5 votes, 13.2%

The Water Dancer

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

4 votes, 10.5%

The Hidden Things

by Jamie Mason

3 votes, 7.9%

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love

by Dani Shapiro

2 votes, 5.3%

Euphoria

by Lily King

2 votes, 5.3%

Exit West

by Mohsin Hamid

2 votes, 5.3%

Tin Badges

by Lorenzo Carcaterra

1 vote, 2.6%

If I Was Your Girl

by Meredith Russo

1 vote, 2.6%

38 total votes

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