Author: David Grossman
This book feels like it was written as a dare — can you turn a stand up comedy act into a book ? I love comedy, but a good portion of the entertainment value is in the delivery. David Grossman, most certainly understands this and to be clear, the book does not have too many jokes.
The storyline is about a comedian who has seen better days calls on an old friend to watch one of his shows. The tension and suspense is around discovering the past of the comedian and how he is connected to the friend that he has invited. David does a great job of making you eager to turn the pages, while entertaining you with a joke or two. Fortunately it is a short book and it is well written.
Author: Jeff Hobbs
To say that Robert Peace was gifted would be an understatement. He overcame obstacles in his life that many of us are unable to even imagine, let alone come out successful. However, the tragic part of this story is that the environment ultimately brought an end to this very promising life. This book is about Robert’s journey by one of his close friend and room-mate at Yale, who clearly has a deep adoration for him. The beauty of the book is that Jeff does an amazing job of telling the story without any bias to judgement. Almost every character is portrayed as operating with best intentions and you are left as the reader to make your own judgements.
Robert Peace was born in July of 1980 to parents Jackie Peace and Robert “Skeet” Douglas in Newark, NJ. It is important to state that in the eighties, there was an abundance of gang-related violence in Newark, where 1 in 3 people lived below the poverty line. It was probably fitting that Time magazine crowned it the “most dangerous city in America”. Robert’s parents never married and one of the reasons could have been that Jackie knew that Skeet sold drugs and was not comfortable with it.
Skeet had a positive influence on Rob’s early life, but it quickly came to an end as he was arrested and jailed, for a crime that I will not reveal so that I don’t ruin the few surprises in the book. Jackie had a minimum wage job in a hospital kitchen and raised Rob on her meager income. She was so determined that Rob get a great education that she forked over a huge chunk of her salary to put Rob into private school. Rob for his part did astoundingly well in school and it culminated in his attending Yale for college.
It is here that we get a good glimpse of Rob’s life as the author Jeff Hobbs was his room-mate and close friend. From the everyday stories of their college life you get a sense of how Rob must have struggled to fit in at Yale. His poverty at home must have made it hard for him to relate to fellow students whose families were most likely at the other end of the income spectrum. While Rob still fares very well academically, you see the first chinks in his armor from a social perspective.
I won’t go further with the details, but the title itself tells you that there is no happy ending in store for Rob. The beauty of the book is to analyze for yourself, how hard it is for a person to cross socio-economic barriers. Jeff lays it out there as it is and you are left wondering what individuals or institutions could have done to have prevented this tragedy. More importantly, it will get you thinking about what you can do to prevent several similar ones from recurring.
