Discover The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark For The Ivy League By Jeff Hobbs Distributed As Hardbound

never met anyone so smart but so fing dumb, ” Oswaldo Gutierrez friend of Robs

This sums up my feelings exactly after reading this troubling book, but at the same time, it is so much more complicated than that.


Robert “Shawn” Peace

is born to a single mother in poverty and crimestricken Newark, New Jersey in.
Although his mother and father never married, his father remained a powerful influence in his life, both negative hustling drugs and positive tirelessly drilling his son on his homework and encouraging his natural curiosity and intelligence.
Even after his father, Skeet, was imprisoned for double homicide, the father and son maintained a tight connection.
Rob was convinced his father was innocent and that he was framed by white police officers, Throughout middle school, high school and college, Rob would work tirelessly on appeals to release his father from prison.


Robs mother, Jackie, fearing her son would turn into another rough boy in the neighborhood, worked hard to enroll her son in private Catholic schools where smaller classes and stronger teachers allowed his natural intellect and interest in math and science to blossom.
At the same time, Rob, noticing his mothers sacrifices on his behalf, “assumed the role of husband to his mother,” working small jobs in the neighborhood and splitting the money with his mother.
This role of protector would become strongly ingrained in Robs persona and would drive his interactions with people for the rest of his life.
At the same time, Rob valued maintaining his connections with his fathers friends who would offer Rob a sip of alcohol or a toke as he strolled through his neighborhood.
Rob became tuned in to the personal stories and problems of his neighbors, and enjoyed offering advice and trying to help solve their problems another pattern that would repeat throughout Robs life.
He also became addicted to the stressrelieving benefits of getting high,

The beneficiary of a full scholarship to Yale, Rob studied molecular biophysics and biochemisty, Rob went to class, did his work and got As, He also ran a very successful side business dealing marijuana at Yale, which netted him over,over his four years there.
Rob was quiet and skilled at keeping how he felt to himself but one classmate made an astute observation:

“Arthur had always been troubled by the anger he sensed in Rob.
Though he hid that anger well behind the grin and the laughter and the marijuana, Arthur felt it in the jokes Rob made to Laurel and others about their privileged upbringings, in his heavy quietude whenever socioeconomic topics came up in conversation, and in his general disdain of Yale and Yalies.
Arthur saw a closemindedness that was, he felt, selfpropogating and innately limiting, More broadly, he believed these qualities explained precisely how an intelligent guy like Rob would always make life harder on himself than it needed to be.
Here he was, drinking brandy in a prestigious society in a topranked school, the beneficiary of so many gifts both natural and bestowed, surrounded by bright and openminded classmates, and yet he still remained mired in, even paralyzed by, what was effectively his own racism.
”

After graduation, Rob stayed on at Yale, first as a summer custodian and then as an assistant in the Yale labs.
After a trip to Rio, he returned to Newark and his homies, the Burger Boyz, and drifted into the sluggish whirlpool of lowpaying, dead end jobs and hustling that would mark the last decade of his life.


“Get the fk out of Newark, Get the fk away from people who wont get the fk out of Newark, ” Oswaldo Gutierrez

How can so much promise go so awry There are many turning points and paths untaken that you can point to, but it seems to me that one mistake that would inform Robs whole life came as soon as he entered it.
All of Jackies siblings moved out of Newark and that toxic environment, but Jackie stayed on in the house that she had lived in since she was eleven and raised her son there.
For someone like Rob who was all about caring for family and friends, he would be drawn to wherever his mother and childhood friends were.


“If you want to, and you dont, then thats on you, ” Rob Peace

Rob was fond of offering this piece of advice to others, but never seemed to grasp the irony with which this applied to him.
He could have gone to graduate school, as he kept talking about, and continued on a path that fostered his gifts and abilities, but he became trapped in an inertia he couldnt seem to shake:

“Oswaldo noticed a circular aspect to Robs speech and manners, a narrowing of vision in a man who, in college, had been more curious and knowledgeable than seemingly any of the five thousand Yale undergraduates surrounding him.
Like the planes that circled above the airport when the ground crew caused runway delays, he fell into a holding pattern of carping about his life while hunched over a joint on Oswaldos sofahis laments were small and tiresomeOswaldo understood now with a clarity hed never had before that all Robs troubles were selfinflicted.
”

The book is authored by one of Robs college roommates and is meticulously researched and reconstructed.
It is so chock full of details, it is not always the smoothest reading experience, Also, this is not a reflection of the writer at all, but the biggest missing piece is Robs own voice.
What was he thinking What specifically kept him spinning in circles, tractionless, held fast in the grip of a life of hustling when he could have done so much more This guarded, brilliant man held his cards so close to the vest that not even the people closest to him could figure out what he was thinking.


This is a book that will haunt me for a long time, especially the last part of the book.
You know from the title how this is going to end for Rob, but I was so filled with dread as I came to the finish that I had to put the book down and walk away for a couple of days before I could bear to pick it up again.


A Highly recommend.
One of the most important books I've ever come across, "The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace" should be required reading in every school in every town in every country across the world.
Aside from being educated about classissues in America, I was deeply affected by Peace's journey, and Hobb's ability to convey it so effectively.
Never before have I been moved to tears by a book that taught me so much,

I cannot recommend this book strongly enough, Please, everyone, read this book, Jeff Hobbs does a fantastic job drawing the reader into life of Robert Peace, From the fierce streets of Newark, to the campus of Yale University and back to Newark, "Rob Peace stood on the cusp of achieving everything that word called to mind.
" As a reader your first inclination is to judge but as the story unfolds you realize if you haven't lived it, how can you judge.
I was reduced to tears at the conclusion of this story and heartbroken over the unconscionable but yet realistic turn of events that defer a dream.
My thoughts continually went to Langston Hughes poem Harlem "What happens to a dream deferred"

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun
Or fester like a sore
And then run
Does it stink like rotten meat
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.


Or does it explode

,