Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Interview: Jeff Hobbs, Author Of 'The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace' : NPR

Interview: Jeff Hobbs, Author Of 'The Short And Tragic Life Of Robert Peace' : NPR: On a May night in 2011, a man was murdered — shot — in a basement just outside Newark, N.J. Cash and marijuana were found at the scene.

Given the circumstances, it might be easy to make assumptions about that man.

Reality, however, is more complex.

Robert Peace, a 30-year-old African-American, was a Yale University graduate and an almost straight-A student in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He also dealt marijuana.

Peace's death and life is the subject of a new book, the result of over 300 hours of interviews with the people who knew him best.

Author Jeff Hobbs, who was Peace's roommate in college, tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace started as a way for him to make sense of the many different sides of his friend.