num_pages: 406
description: What does the untimely death of one man mean?Robert Peace was born outside Newark in a ghetto known as Illtown. His unwed mother worked long hours in a kitchen. His charismatic father was later convicted of a double murder. Peace's intellectual brilliance and hard-won determination earned him a full scholarship to Yale University. At college while majoring in molecular biophysics and biochemistry he straddled the world of academia and the world of the street never revealing his full self in either place. Upon graduation from Yale he went home to teach at the Catholic high school he'd attended slid into the drug trade and was brutally murdered at age thirty.That's the short version of Robert Peace's life. The long version the complete version is this remarkable tour de force by Jeff Hobbs a talented young novelist who was Peace's college roommate. Hobbs attended Peace's funeral reached out to his friends from both Yale and Newark and ultimately decided to write this harrowing and beautiful account of his life.What does the haunting untimely death of one man mean? Robert Peace's life doesn't reduce to easy sociological constructions. Through Hobbs's relentless research and remarkable writing we learn the cost of living between the world Peace was born into and the one his potential allowed him to enter. We see him work love fail succeed give to others care for his mother travel and dream. We witness the decisions he made for himself and the ones that life forced upon him. But most importantly we come to understand the sheer complexity of his existence and are irrevocably changed by the fascinating devastating and unforgettable life of Robert Peace.
language: English
title: The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
publisher: Scribner