The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
Jeff Hobbs, 2014
Scribner
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476731902
Summary
A heartfelt, and riveting biography of the short life of a talented young African-American man who escapes the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets—and of one’s own nature—when he returns home.
When author Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Robert’s life was rough from the beginning in the crime-ridden streets of Newark in the 1980s, with his father in jail and his mother earning less than $15,000 a year.
But Robert was a brilliant student, and 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. Robert carried with him the difficult dual nature of his existence, “fronting” in Yale, and at home.
Through an honest rendering of Robert’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 encompasses the most enduring conflicts in America: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, education, family, friendship, and love. It’s about the collision of two fiercely insular worlds—the ivy-covered campus of Yale University and Newark, New Jersey, and the difficulty of going from one to the other and then back again.
It’s about poverty, the challenges of single motherhood, and the struggle to find male role models in a community where a man is more likely to go to prison than to college. It’s about reaching one’s greatest potential and taking responsibility for your family no matter the cost. It’s about trying to live a decent life in America.
But most all the story is about the tragic life of one singular brilliant young man. His end, a violent one, is heartbreaking and powerful and unforgettable. (From the publisher.)
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Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Raised—Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—Los Angeles, California
Jeff Hobbs graduated with a BA in English language and literature from Yale in 2002, where he was awarded the Willets and Meeker prizes for his writing. Hobbs spent three years in New York and Tanzania while working with the African Rainforest Conservancy. He now lives in Los Angeles with his wife. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] haunting work of nonfiction with a title that is all too self-explanatory…. Mr. Hobbs writes in a forthright but not florid way about a heartbreaking story…. [He] does a fascinating job of raising…questions, even though he cannot possibly answer them.
Janet Maslin - New York Times Book Review
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. Robert Peace, who called his mother “my heart,” was her only and beloved son. But he was our son, too. We are the wondrous country that made him a Yale man. We are the wanting country where even that wasn’t enough to spare him.
Anand Giridharadas - New York Times Book Review
An impressive debut in which keen insights are often strewn amid the narrative like shiny pennies on a dirty sidewalk.
Boston Globe
Hobbs...captures the restlessness and ridiculousness of the sushi set's adult-onset angst with note-perfect acuity and a wry sense of humor.
USA Today
[An] ambitious and darkly contemporary first novel... You don't need to draw the parallels with The Great Gatsby's rootless socialites to hear the slither of snakes in the grass.
Los Angeles Magazine
(Starred review.) A man with seemingly every opportunity loses his way in this compelling biographical saga.... Hobbs reveals a man whose singular experience and charisma made him simultaneously an outsider and a leader in both New Haven and Newark.
Publishers Weekly
Hobbs reconstructs the life and thoughts of Rob Peace—his close friend and roommate for four years at Yale University—after his friend's untimely death.... At its core, the story compels readers to question how much one can really know about another person. —Jessica Spears, Monroe Coll. Lib., Bronx, NY
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Peace navigated the clashing cultures of urban poverty and Ivy League privilege, never quite finding a place where his particular brand of nerdiness and cool could coexist... [Hobbs] set out to offer a full picture of a very complicated individual. Writing with the intimacy of a close friend, Hobbs slowly reveals Peace as far more than a cliché of amazing potential squandered.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Ambitious, moving tale of an inner-city Newark kid who made it to Yale yet succumbed to old demons and economic realities.... An urgent report on the state of American aspirations and a haunting dispatch from forsaken streets.
Kirkus Reviews
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