Debt Collectors In Love - Paperback

by John Sandman (Author)

Kay Pigeon's daughter, Leenie, got student loans to attend film school in LA. That was supposed to make her life sublime. Instead it condemned her to a large amount of debt after she graduated into the 2008 recession and a job in the food service industry.

Leenie's loan, which Kay co-signed, and the Wall Street trade paper she writes for are making her life miserable. That publication, SIN, is collapsing as Kay struggles with journalism's transition from print to the internet at the start of the decade.

While Leenie is on the West Coast waiting on tables, the phone in Kay's New York apartment constantly rings with calls from the loan servicer in Pennsylvania, most often from call center rep Doris Morris. The payments, which Kay is responsible for, are being applied to the wrong loan and she can't find out why. Kay gets no help from the peevish Doris, until she decides to dish about the corruption at the loan servicer. It's Kay's opportunity to write an expose--which may lead to a new job--while getting to the bottom of her own problem.

Debt Collectors In Love takes a trip through Millennial debt, casino gambling, Occupy Wall Street, the excesses of the capital markets, early stage Alzheimer's disease, the impact of social media on journalism and gender conflict in the workplace. In the end, after everyone has deserted her, the thing Kay can always count on is having to pay her daughter's debt. Kay can look forward to joining a growing cohort of Americans who will have their retirement benefits garnished to pay off someone else's student loan.

Author Biography

Born in Camden, New Jersey, John Sandman has been a journalist for over three decades. His work has appeared in numerous publications, from the jazz magazine Down Beat to the Journal of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care to US News & World Report and a start-up at the Financial Times covering the insurance industry. At TheStreet.com, he wrote about student debt with a focus on loan servicers, for-profit colleges and the U.S. Department of Education. He received a 2013 award from the Society of Silurians, a New York City newspaper group, for a story about internet payday lending that appeared in City Limits. He was part of a team of reporters that won a Jesse H. Neal award for reporting on the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center for Securities Industry News, then owned by what is now Thomson Reuters. His first novel was published in Toronto by House of Anansi Press. He's received numerous writing grants from the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council and the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation.