This reading group guide for The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Jeff Hobbs . The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book. Introduction When Jeff Hobbs arrived at Yale University, he became fast friends with the man who would be his college roommate for four years, Robert Peace. Rob''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 barely scraping by as a cafeteria worker. But Rob was a brilliant student, and everything was supposed to get easier when he was accepted to Yale. But nothing got easier. Rob carried with him the difficult dual nature of his existence, "fronting" at Yale and at home.
As Jeff pieces together Rob''s life story through his relationships--with his struggling mother, his incarcerated father, his teachers and friends and fellow drug dealers-- The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace comes to encompass the most enduring conflicts in America: race, class, drugs, community, imprisonment, education, family, friendship, and love. Rob''s story is 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 trying to live a decent life in America. But most all, the book is about the life and death of one brilliant man. Topics & Questions for Discussion 1. The title of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace reveals its ending. What was it like to read Peace''s life story, knowing how it would end? Was the tragedy present in your mind throughout the reading experience, or were you able to forget it at any point? 2. When Jackie first asked Skeet for tuition to send their son to private school, Skeet called her "uppity" (pp.
22-23). How does the term "uppity" capture the possibilities and pitfalls of Jackie''s aspirations for Rob? 3. Throughout his short life, Rob "strove to project confidence and strength while refusing to show weakness and insecurity" (p. 57). Why do you think Rob refused to ask for help during his many moments of need? What were the direct and indirect consequences of Rob''s projection of confidence? 4. Discuss Rob''s methods of "Newark-proofing": code-switching to protect himself in the streets of his hometown. According to Rob, how is Newark-proofing compatible with authenticity? How does Newark-proofing compare to "fronting," a type of role-play that Rob disdained? Do you agree with Rob''s distinction between Newark-proofing and fronting? Why or why not? 5. Consider Rob''s relationship to the drug trade, as both user and seller.
How did marijuana affect his intellect, his emotions, and his relationships? Do you think a different legal policy toward marijuana might have affected his life course? Why or why not? 6. Discuss Rob''s attitudes toward money, poverty, and class. In what ways did Rob seek to escape or fix the deprived circumstances of his upbringing? In what ways did he replicate or revert to the cycle of poverty? 7. Consider the complicated journey of Skeet''s conviction, appeals, illness, and death. What were the injustices of Skeet''s experience? How do these injustices mirror larger issues of America''s justice system? How might the crime and its punishment be considered ambiguous or complicated? 8. Jeff Hobbs doesn''t enter the story until almost a third of the way through the book, when he and Rob Peace were matched as college roommates. What was it like to begin this book without "meeting" its narrator? How does the narrative change when Jeff steps onto the page? 9. Discuss the universal and particular elements of Rob''s college experience.
What are some of the typical college milestones that Rob experienced at Yale? What was extraordinary or singular about his Yale years? In what ways does Rob''s experience point to larger questions about the value of a college degree today, particularly from an Ivy League school? 10. Consider Oswaldo Gutierrez, Rob''s friend who also traveled from Newark to New Haven and back again. Which of Oswaldo and Rob''s obstacles were similar, and which were different? How does Oswaldo''s current success shed light on Rob''s life choices? 11. Revisit Rob''s "statement of purpose" drafted for graduate school applications, printed in full near the end of the book (pp. 337-40). Why do you think Hobbs chose to print the statement in full--typos and all? What is the effect of reading this rough draft? 12. Jeff Hobbs orchestrates dozens of voices on the life and death of Robert Peace. Of all the perspectives in the book, whose felt most objective? Who, if anyone, might have offered a biased view of Peace''s history? 13.
How did you feel when the Burger Boyz were disallowed from attending Rob''s funeral (pp. 392-93)? Could you sympathize with this decision? Do you think these young men deserve forgiveness for any connection with Rob''s death? 14. At Rob''s funeral, in front of four hundred mourners, Raquel compared her friend to a redwood tree, and took "solace in the fact that so many others thrived and found refuge in his shade while he was with us" (p. 390). Why do you think Rob had such a towering influence on so many people? How might that influence extend to the people who "meet" Rob by reading this book? Enhance Your Book Club 1. Listen to a short interview with Jeff Hobbs on KCRW, the Los Angeles-based radio station: http://blogs.kcrw.com/whichwayla/2014/09/two-unlikely-friends-one-tragic-ending.
2. Watch the Academy Award-nominated PBS documentary Street Fight , about Cory Booker''s 2002 campaign for mayor. Learn more about the film and find websites that stream it here: http://www.streetfightfilm.com/index.html. 3. Mourners have left mix CDs on Rob Peace''s grave site.
Using your favorite music-streaming service, compile a mix in tribute to Peace, including some of the songs mentioned in the book: "Southern Hospitality" by Ludacris, "Ride wit Me" by Nelly, "Put It on Me" by Ja Rule, "It Wasn''t Me" by Shaggy, "Forget You" by Cee Lo Green, and "Ruff Ryders'' Anthem" by DMX. Add songs by Tupac Shakur, Biggie Smalls, Nas, and even two of the "prog rock" bands Rob discovered through his friend Hrvoje: the Misfits and Black Flag. 4. Try your hand at Jeff Hobbs''s research methods: choose any friend or loved one as a research subject. Interview three of your subject''s friends or relatives, asking the same two or three questions about the subject''s personal history. Do you get similar versions of the same story, or completely different stories? Discuss your research results with your book club. A Conversation with Jeff Hobbs Why did you decide to write this book? On a Wednesday night in May 2011, while in the midst of brushing my teeth, I learned that my best friend from college had died violently, pointlessly, and painfully. I did what anyone does upon losing someone dear: flew to the funeral, said a few words during the service, bowed my head during the burial, made toasts to Rob having been a "good dude," mourned, tried to move on.
Except that I couldn''t move on; I returned home and found myself spending full workdays staring at the knotty wall planking in the garage where I work, mostly remembering good times had with Rob. I wrote a bunch of personal essays, weaving together college memories with weak attempts at insight, as well as stabbing at the guilt of having allowed our friendship to grow distant over the decade since we''d graduated. I reached out to mutual friends, spent hours talking on the phone and in person, asking each other, of course, why? A community formed around this question, many people from the various spaces of his life connecting with one another. And at some point it became important to people that some record exist--of his life, not only his death. In the end, there was not so much a specific decisive moment of, "I am going to write a book about Rob," but rather a process of being caught in this wave of loss and curiosity--of needing to know more--which only gathered strength as weeks and months passed. To some degree, no matter the medium or intention, everyone writes about what conflicts them, and nothing has ever conflicted me more than the death of Rob Peace. How did Rob''s friends and family react to your intention to write his biography? To say that Jackie Peace had given all of herself in order to nurture Rob''s intelligence and curiosity in a neighborhood in which neither trait had much currency would be a vast understatement. When she lost him, she lost not only her only child but all those decades of sacrifice--she lost her identity and her hope.
I didn''t know Jackie well at all when I first sat down in her living room to speak formally about the book. She told me that her lone consolation after his death was, "I think my son influenced a lot of people, I really do believe that." Feeling very small in proximity to this woman and her grief, I replied that, if she was willing, I wanted to write a book--a book about Rob''s life, not his death. I told her that there was very little chance of it being published, but I was driven to work to piece his story together.