Download The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League, by Jeff Hobbs
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The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League, by Jeff Hobbs
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Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, September 2014: To read The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, a meticulous and heartfelt account of a brilliant black student from the poverty-stricken streets of Newark, is to see the best of the American dream lived and ultimately, tragically, lost. Peace’s mother endured great sacrifices to ensure that her gifted son would meet his full potential. His father, until his arrest for murder when Rob was seven, dedicated himself to helping his son learn and mature. Rob was a popular, straight-A student who played on the water polo team (his mother scraped up enough money to send him to parochial school), and upon graduating he was rewarded with a scholarship to Yale. Although he continued to thrive academically in college, growing up in the second largest concentration of African-Americans living under the poverty line created barriers that even one as gifted as Robert Peace could not fully surmount. This is a riveting and heartbreaking read, as Rob Peace seems always to have been on the outside—the resented geek in the hood, and the inner city black man in the Ivy League. –Chris Schluep Guest Review of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Michelle Alexander This is a book you will not forget. It will stay with you, haunt you. Strangely, it may even inspire you. You may not realize how good it is until days or weeks after you’ve finished it. The truth may dawn on you when you notice that you keep talking about the book with friends or family or the person sitting next to you on the bus. Perhaps you’ll begin to think that the book was more than good – truly great – when you find yourself thinking about Robert Peace as you’re drifting off to sleep and then find that he’s still on your mind in the morning. This book was born from grief, but it pulses with the life of an unforgettable young man. The story is deftly told by Robert Peace’s white college roommate and good friend, Jeff Hobbs, someone who knew Robert well, but didn’t. Written with great compassion yet unflinching honesty, the book invites you to contemplate the meaning of one man’s life—a life that could’ve turned out so differently. The question that will tease and torment you, but can never, ever be answered, will linger: Why? Why would an astonishingly brilliant young black man who worked so tirelessly as a teen, overcoming incredible odds to get out of the ‘hood, out of crushing poverty, and off to Yale, and who excelled once he was there – academically as well as socially – why would he forfeit all of the opportunity that was now waiting for him, the shining path that lay ahead beckoning him? Why would Robert Peace toss it all away so that he could return to his ‘hood, deal drugs, and try to make it on a path that was so obviously doomed? Why? My husband read the book because I could not stop talking about it. We disagree completely on why Robert Peace chose to be drug dealer rather than a genius scientist who cures cancer or wins a Nobel Prize—possibilities that do not seem entirely fanciful given his ac-ademic prowess and his passion for science. My husband views Robert as a tragic Greek fig-ure, someone who was on the brink of greatness but whose personal flaws and weaknesses ulti-mately got the best of him. Some of the people who knew Robert best apparently have a similar view; they think that he couldn’t shake his dream of being “the Man,†making it big without the hard work and discipline that is required of a more traditional path. None of those views sit right with me. Robert Peace was about as hard-working and disciplined as they come. And he showed no great interest in wealth or “bling.†He sold mari-juana for pragmatic reasons—to make money to pay for school, support his mother, buy stuff he thought he needed, save for the future, and fund legitimate business ventures. I cannot pretend to know why Robert Peace chose the path he did, and it is entirely possible that he, himself, would not have been able to answer the “why†question even if he had been asked moments before he was killed. But I suspect the why had more to do with his virtues than his vices. Yet Robert did not want to leave anyone behind. Above all things, he was loyal. He was loyal to his father who was serving time in prison for murder. He was loyal to his family, to his friends, to his neighborhood. He did not want to go on ahead. He wanted to make it with them, and be one of them. If he was going to make it big, he wanted it to make it with the people he loved. But we, as a society, will not allow for that. Only a chosen few are allowed to escape from the ‘hood, and when they have their chance to make a break for it, they’re supposed to do it alone. They’re supposed to run away from their old neighborhood, away from their old friends, and become someone new—someone who likes socializing with other Ivy Leaguers and chatting about vacation destinations, private schools, and career paths. But that wasn’t Robert. Robert preferred to eat with the cafeteria workers rather than with his classmates at Yale. He felt he belonged to them. He didn’t respect or admire the over-privileged, spoiled kids at Yale; he resented them. He did not want to become them. He was open-hearted and able to make friends with anyone – and he did make many friends at Yale – but who he really loved, who he really cared about, could be found in his old neighborhood. He knew who he was when he came home; everything else was foreign, everywhere else he was fronting. If there was some path to great “success†that could’ve included his old friends and his old world – one that did not require him to abandon his core identity and all that mattered most – I believe Robert would be alive today. I cannot prove this. And I will confess that my views are influenced by the young people that I have mentored over the years, young folks that I’ve tried to persuade to leave the ‘hood but wouldn’t or couldn’t. I remember once talking with other mentors about how frustrated we were that so many kids “kept returning to the block†or “kept running with the same crowd†when opportunity existed elsewhere. But now I see that the impulse to return and to leave no one behind – not childhood friends, not aunts or cousins or un-cles – may reflect more virtue than vice. It might be love. That is not to say that Robert did not have major flaws. We all do. But something more than character flaws killed him. This is a beautifully simple book. It does not preach; it offers no answers. But it raises many questions I believe we should be asking ourselves, including why we afford only a tiny number of young people in certain communities defined by race and class an opportunity to live their dreams, and require, as the price for their ticket, leaving behind the very people and places and identities that have given their lives meaning. Robert’s friend Oswaldo lost his mind—literally—as he struggled to make the transi-tion from his segregated, ghettoized community to the halls of Yale. This story ends with Os-waldo surviving his institutionalization in a mental ward and going on to be a “success,†while Robert is shot and killed in a house with his best friends, all of whom were scheming and dreaming of making it together somehow. Read this extraordinary book and decide for yourself who or what killed Robert Peace. I am fairly certain that more of us are to blame than Robert and the man who pulled the trigger.
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Review
“Mesmeric... [Hobbs] asks the consummate American question: Is it possible to reinvent yourself, to sculpture your own destiny?... That one man can contain such contradictions makes for an astonishing, tragic story. In Hobbs’s hands, though, it becomes something more: an interrogation of our national creed of self-invention.... [The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace] deserves a turn in the nation’s pulpit from which it can beg us to see the third world America in our midst.” (The New York Times Book Review)"Many institutions that provide bridges to realization of The American Dream conflate the aspirant’s yearning to participate fully with a desire to leave everything behind. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace reveals the devastating consequences of this assumption. There are few road maps for students who carry our much-valued diversity, and few tools for those who remain ignorant of the diverse riches in their midst. Jeff Hobbs has made an important contribution to the literature for all of us. He shows what high quality journalism can aspire to in its own yearning for justice—the urgency of taking a full and accurate account of irreplaceable loss, so we don’t keep making the same mistakes over and over again." (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, author of Random Family)"A haunting work of nonfiction.... Mr. Hobbs writes in a forthright but not florid way about a heartbreaking story.” (The New York Times)"I can hardly think of a book that feels more necessary, relevant, and urgent." (Grantland)"The Short Tragic Life of Robert Peace is a book that is as much about class as it is race. Peace traveled across America’s widening social divide, and Hobbs’ book is an honest, insightful and empathetic account of his sometimes painful, always strange journey." (The Los Angeles Times)"Devastating. It is a testament to Hobbs’s talents that Peace’s murder still shocks and stings even though we are clued into his fate from the outset....a first-rate book. [Hobbs] has a tremendous ability to empathize with all of his characters without romanticizing any of them." (Boston Globe)"It is hard to imagine a writer with no personal connection to Peace being able to generate as much emotional traction in this narrative as Hobbs does, to care as much about portraying fully the depth and intricacy of Peace’s life, his friends and the context of it all... it is an enormous writing feat.. fresh, compelling." (The Washington Post)"[An] intimate biography... Hobbs uses [Peace's] journey as an opportunity to discuss race and class, but he doesn’t let such issues crowd out a sense of his friend’s individuality...By the end, the reader, like the author, desperately wishes that Peace could have had more time." (The New Yorker)“Heartbreaking.” (O Magazine)"Captivating... a smart meditation on the false promise of social mobility." (Bloomsberg BusinessWeek)
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Product details
Hardcover: 416 pages
Publisher: Scribner; First Edition edition (September 23, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 147673190X
ISBN-13: 978-1476731902
Product Dimensions:
6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.4 out of 5 stars
1,431 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#64,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Robert Peace and Jeff Hobbs came from vastly different backgrounds, but when Yale paired them as college roommates, a race- and class-bridging friendship emerged. When Robert passed away several years after they graduated, Jeff took on the task of chronicling his life in The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League. The story is not without its happy moments, but, ultimately, it's sad and discouraging.Robert grew up in Newark, poor, son of a single mother and a father who was in prison for a double murder. Even as a toddler, he showed signs of brilliance, so his mother made endless sacrifices to ensure that he got a good education. He was a stellar student, and graduated with accolades from a local Catholic prep school. Due to the generosity of the school's patron, he had his way paid to Yale, where he excelled in the molecular biology program.At every point in his education, Rob was well-liked by his peers and lauded by his teachers. He showed a remarkable selflessness, as he helped out his friends, many of whom would have struggled academically if not for his tutelage. He showed a great work ethic in his studies, on the water polo team, and in his outside work as a lifeguard, lab assistant, and other roles.Rob's story should have been a rags to riches tale, an inspiring story of a man who had everything going against him, but through hard work, a brilliant mind, and some great connections along the way, became a great leader in government, business, the community, or all of the above. Alas, Rob was a habitual pot smoker, as well as being a very active dealer. He became the number one dealer at Yale, where there was no shortage of customers, and continued his dealing after graduation in order to make ends meet and to fund his various endeavors.One of Rob's Yale friends, who also came from poverty, put it well: "You do dumb s*** and you know it's dumb s*** but it's the same dumb s*** you grew up around so you do it anyway." Rob never seemed to wrestle with the ethical or legal implications of his dealing, only with seeking to avoid getting caught. When planning the "last big deal" that was supposed to set him up financially, he told his friends, "There's no great man who doesn't have [an ethical gray area], no man who's ever made a difference, anyway. You don't get to the top without compromising something along the way. . . . Look at politics and presidents . . ."Ultimately, Rob's belief that he was above the law and above the darker side of drug dealing caught up with him and cost him his life. While he showed a lot of character in his care for his mother, his legal efforts on behalf of his father, and his treatment of his friends, his lack of a true moral compass was his downfall. He was able to justify the means by looking to the ends. To his credit, he was enabled to do so. One of the teachers at his Catholic high school confronted him about his drug use. Rob laughed it off, and the priest figured Rob could handle it and dropped the subject. I wonder if the priests who ran the school were so enamored with Rob's great qualities that they failed to see his need for moral instruction. Later, Yale officials confronted him about his drug dealing, an offense that should have lead to expulsion, but, laughably, they let him off without a penalty--as long as he promised not to do it anymore. Even his friends were reluctant to call Rob out for his self-destructive lifestyle, because they figured, he's Rob, he'll figure it out.Hobbs does a masterful job of capturing Rob's life. He conducted hundreds of hours of interviews, getting background and perspective from wide circles of friends and acquaintances. Of course, he takes a novelist's liberty to reconstruct conversations and events, but the book has a very authentic feel. Although Hobbs is a friend and admirer, he doesn't justify or excuse Rob's choices. Refreshingly, neither does he make Rob's story a political or sociological statement. The reader, of course, must inevitably confront the political and sociological questions raised by Rob's story. How can such a promising young man, given the highest of opportunities, not rise from a poverty-stricken slum? What does it take for a bright, inner-city student to succeed, if not a full ride at Yale?Rob's life was full of drama, but Hobbs's writing transcends Rob's story. He takes a troubled, tragic life and preserves it in a highly readable narrative. In Hobbs's telling of Rob's story, I felt a sense of brooding inevitability of Rob's self-destruction. Hobbs interjects some commentary on race, class, economics and poverty, elitism, and education inequality, but always from Rob's perspective and centered on Rob's experiences. In that sense, he has given us a poor, black Everyman, whose life demonstrates that our destinies are shaped not only by our family, neighborhood, wealth or lack of it--things over which we have no control--but also by choices we make every day, large and small.Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!
The title of course tells one what the ending will be. As I navigated through the tragic events of Robs life, I experienced a mixed bag of feelings. This was a boy from Orange New Jersey born to a single mother who never married his father who spent the majority of Ron's life in prison. His dad was convicted of murder that he said he was innocent of even until he died. Rob was raised in poverty, struggled through life's adversities but had the support of his mom which encouraged and supported him to get an education so he could have a better life. He was a super intelligent young man who went to Yale. He earned his way to Yale, graduated yet ended back in New Jersey. He traveled, taught school, took care of his mom and yes sold and used drugs. His life was taken because he sold drugs.Rob was a brilliant, remarkable and flawed young man. He was trying to live a dreamlike in America. This was a touching, sometimes hard to read book. I knew the ending yet I wanted a different outcome for this young man and for his mother.
As a former Newark inner city teacher, this really resonated with me. In each step of the book, I was able to place a face of a former student which brought so many emotions. The book was well written and made it easy to transition from year to year in his life. You grew with him and got to know him. I found that it was hard to let this book go. Even though its been a week since I've finished it, I find myself thinking about him.
I just finished the book a few hours ago. The author of one of the dust-jacket blurbs got it exactly right: reading The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace has changed me forever. I am going to be processing this book for a long time, and it is a measure of how profoundly transformative it was that I don't really want to talk to anybody about it yet. Usually when I have read something good, I seek out other people who have read it too, eager to do the de-brief together. This book was different: overwhelming and silencing.The only reason I gave it four stars instead of five was because the author seemed to completely miss something obvious: Robert Peace was clearly an addict and probably an alcoholic. The book describes his daily drinking and drug use and hangovers, noting the huge quantities he ingested, and the progressively greater quantities he required as time went on. And at one point, the author does mention, almost in passing, that Robert considered himself a "high functioning" addict. But that's not the kind of thing that merits just a passing mention. The inability to form a healthy intimate relationship, the emotional development stalled at the age (adolescence) that drug use began, the choice of menial work that you can do even when out-of-it, the grandiose plans coexisting with a profound fear of change: all of it is classic Addiction 101.In fairness to the author, who is still young, I can see how he would miss the obvious truth staring everyone in the face. A lot of people in Robert Peace's orbit -- the Yale set very much included -- drank alcoholically and abused drugs, too. So even though Robert's using stood out, the author perhaps mistook it as a difference of degree rather than kind. And of course, the other issues that may have served to obscure the addiction were real, too, and serious: the anguish of not quite belonging in either of two very different worlds, the loss of his father to prison and then to the grave, the huge expectations placed on him by himself and others, and the tremendous psychospiritual difficulty of doing better than your parents, even if they want you to. By his own accounting, Robert used drugs to cope with the chronic anxiety of his own schizophregenic existence. The problem is that of all the very serious and legitimate difficulties of his life, there was not a single one that his addiction did not make worse. I hope his soul has found the peace that so eluded him in life. There but for the grace of God . . .
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