Adapted from Jeff Hobbs' biography The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace
The protagonist of this book is a boy named Robert Pease, who grew up in a slum in Newark, New Jersey. He was admitted to Yale University to study biology, but at the age of 30, he died in a brawl between drug gangs. The story is narrated by Robert's Yale roommate, telling the story from the perspective of a bystander who seems to have rebelled from the original class, but still cannot escape the tragic fate.
The story of an inner-city Newark kid who attends Yale yet ultimately suc cumbs to harsh economic realities and the demons of his past.