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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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THE SHORT AND TRAGIC LIFE OF ROBERT PEACE
A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League but did not Survive
A brilliantly written, heartfelt, and deeply researched account of the short life of a talented young African-American man who escaped the slums of Newark, NJ to Yale University, but was unable to elude the dangers of the streets when he returned.
The life of Robert DeShaun Peace, Jeff Hobb’s roommate and best friend in college, started out hard on the drug-infested, crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980’s, with his father in jail for a double-homicide and his mother earning less than $15,000 a year in a hospital kitchen. It was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale, where he studied molecular biochemistry and biophysics. But it didn’t get easier. Life got harder, and ended when he bled to death in a dank Newark basement beside a gas mask, fifty pounds of marijuana, a butane tank he used for THC extraction, and the Kevlar vest he wore whenever he went outside. He was thirty years old, the victim of a gang-related drug assassination.
Through an honest and intimate rendering of this preternaturally bright man’s relationships—with his struggling mother, with his incarcerated father, with his teachers and friends and fellow drug dealers—The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace embodies many of the most enduring conflicts in America both past and present: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, government, education, family, friendship, and love—encompassing them through the achievements and struggles of a controversial man. It’s about trying to live a decent life in America and finding that tremendously difficult.
Above all, this book simply walks beside Rob Peace over the course of thirty years and explores this life, its loss, and the violent truth of the American dilemma: You can’t shed your roots, but neither can you ever go home again.
Jeff Hobbs grew up in Kennet Square, PA. He attended Yale University, where he ran track and won prizes for his fiction and composition. After graduating with a BA in English Language & Literature, he spent the next three years living alternately in New York City and Tanzania while working as Executive Director for the African Rainforest Conservancy. During this time, he met Bret Easton Ellis, who mentored his fiction writing. After getting married in 2005, he moved to Los Angeles, where his wife works as a film and television executive. His first novel, The Tourists, was published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster. He has contributed to Men’s Vogue and GQ. He works at home with his dog, Noah, and his daughter, Lucy Sugar.
Through an honest and intimate rendering of this preternaturally bright man’s relationships—with his struggling mother, with his incarcerated father, with his teachers and friends and fellow drug dealers—The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace embodies many of the most enduring conflicts in America both past and present: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, government, education, family, friendship, and love—encompassing them through the achievements and struggles of a controversial man. It’s about trying to live a decent life in America and finding that tremendously difficult.
Above all, this book simply walks beside Rob Peace over the course of thirty years and explores this life, its loss, and the violent truth of the American dilemma: You can’t shed your roots, but neither can you ever go home again.
Jeff Hobbs grew up in Kennet Square, PA. He attended Yale University, where he ran track and won prizes for his fiction and composition. After graduating with a BA in English Language & Literature, he spent the next three years living alternately in New York City and Tanzania while working as Executive Director for the African Rainforest Conservancy. During this time, he met Bret Easton Ellis, who mentored his fiction writing. After getting married in 2005, he moved to Los Angeles, where his wife works as a film and television executive. His first novel, The Tourists, was published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster. He has contributed to Men’s Vogue and GQ. He works at home with his dog, Noah, and his daughter, Lucy Sugar.
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Book
Published 2014-09-01 by Scribner |
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Book
Published 2014-09-01 by Scribner |