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★美國國家書卷獎得主Andrew Solomon（《正午惡魔》、《Far from the Tree》）盛情推薦

一名天資聰穎的美國黑人青年，奮力逃離紐華克貧民窟，成為耶魯大學精英，卻仍被衝突的內心與險惡街頭吞噬，短暫一生道盡兩個孤立世界的碰撞，以及回家的艱難！

小說家Jeff Hobbs當年成為耶魯大學新鮮人時，與本書主人翁羅伯特（Robert Peace）迅速成為好友，開始兩人長達四年的室友情誼。他在本書結合回憶錄、社會學分析與都市敘事，寫就好友令人唏噓的短暫一生，梳理背後錯綜複雜的原因，情感真摯，宛如緊扣人心的小說，亦是映照美國種族階級處境的悲歌。

羅伯特誕生於一九八○年代犯罪頻仍的紐華克，獨立堅強的母親夜以繼日做著醫院廚房的低薪工作，個人魅力十足、對羅伯特關愛備至的父親混跡街頭維生，卻在羅伯特七歲時在證據存疑的情況下謀殺罪定讞入獄。此後，母親獨力靠著一年不到一萬五千美元的收入，將聰穎的羅伯特送進教會學校就讀，並獲得銀行慈善家的賞識，資助他一路躋身耶魯大學，就讀分子生化學與分子物理學。

豈料，羅伯特並未就此掙脫艱險的命運，衝突的成長背景與認同始終形影不離；他在高端生化實驗室名列前茅，私底下販賣大麻打通校園人際，將晦暗真實的一面深深藏起，過著雙重人生。畢業後他選擇回到家鄉紐華克，不幸於2011年命喪糾紛。

作者誠實描繪羅伯特的各層人際關係，勉強度日的母親、被監禁的父親、老師、友人以及販毒同夥，《The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace》映現美國社會最根深柢固的衝突，將種族、階級、毒品、社群、教育等因素與家庭、友情、愛情細膩交織，亦不乏作者對大學生活的批判。羅伯特的故事體現兩個極孤立的世界——布滿常春藤的耶魯校園，與惡名昭彰的紐澤西紐華克——的碰撞，道盡從一者爬升至另一者，再選擇回去的艱難。

在他的故事裡，我們看見貧窮的無望，單親媽媽的挑戰，在一個男人更可能進監牢而非進大學的社區裡，追尋父親角色的迷惘；看見一個人將潛力發揮至極限，不計任何代價扛起家庭重擔，試著過上好生活，以及這個美國夢最終的隕落。羅伯特短暫的一生與暴力的結局令人震撼、心碎、低迴不已，促使人深刻省思這個表面上讚揚流動，公義卻始終無法浸透特權的社會。

Jeff Hobbs grew up in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. He attended Yale University, where he won the Meeker Prize for his writing and the Gardner Millett Award for his running. After graduating with a BA in English language and literature, he wpent three years working as executive director for the African Rainforest Conservancy. His first novel, The Tourists, was published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster and was a national bestseller. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

“If The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace were a novel, it would be a moral fable for our times; as nonfiction, it is one of the saddest and most devastating books I’ve ever read, a tour-de-force of compassion and insight, an exquisite elegy for a person, for a time of life, for a valid hope that nonetheless failed. It is also a profound reflection on a society that professes to value social mobility, but that often does not or cannot imbue privilege with justice. It is written with clarity, precision, and tenderness, without judgment, with immense kindness, and with a quiet poetry. Few books transform us, but this one has changed me forever.”—— Andrew Solomon，美國國家書卷獎得主，《Far From the Tree》、《正午惡魔》（Noonday Demon）作者

"Compelling... with novelistic detail and deep insight, Hobbs reveals a man whose singular experience and charisma made him simultaneously an outsider and a leader in both New Hampshire and Newark. This is a classic tragedy of a man who, with the best intentions, chooses an ineluctable path to disaster."——《出版人周刊》，星級書評

“Ambitious, moving tale. . . . Hobbs combines memoir, sociological analysis, and urban narrative elements, producing a perceptive page-turner regarding the life of his eponymous protagonist, also his college roommate. . . . Hobbs manages the ambiguities of what could be a grim tale by meticulously constructing environmental verisimilitude and unpacking the rituals of hardscrabble parochial schools, Yale secret societies, urban political machinations and Newark drug gangs. An urgent report on the state of American aspirations and a haunting dispatch from forsaken streets.” ——《科克斯評論》，星級書評