57 pages • 1 hour read
The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace: A Brilliant Young Man Who Left Newark for the Ivy League
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4: “Mr. Peace”
Part 4, Chapter 9 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use and mental illness.
Rob stayed back at Yale as custodial staff over the summer. Helping clear the student accommodation, he also emptied trash and cleaned up at the alumni reunions. Rob then returned to working at Yale Medical School, assisting in cancer research. Although not romantically involved with Raquel, he lived with her in a basement apartment in New Haven.
On weekends, Rob visited Newark, seeing his mother, Flowy, Tavarus, and Drew, who had also dropped out of college. Rob gave Jackie a few hundred dollars each time he visited. However, she was unhappy that Rob had no clear plans for his future. Jackie was also concerned that Rob might become a target for the increasing number of violent gangs involved in drug dealing, such as the Double II Set. Rob bought his marijuana supplies from his father’s friend Carl. Drew suggested that Carl was unreliable, but Rob insisted he was “family.”
Hobbs, like many of his Yale classmates, moved to New York City after graduating. With the help of his brother’s connections, he secured a grant proposal writing job. In August 2002, he met up with Rob at Yale. Rob talked longingly about traveling to Rio in time for Carnival, telling Hobbs how everyone on the city’s beaches clapped when the sun went down.
Oswaldo also returned to Newark after graduating. Struggling to readjust, he worked for his father’s home repair business. Nevertheless, he declined Rob’s offer to go with him to Rio.
Rob kept the money he made from selling marijuana in a trunk. He laundered some of the cash through his job at the university lab, paying for lab supplies himself and then submitting the receipts for reimbursement. In February 2003, Rob finally left for Rio, leaving his padlocked money trunk with Carl for safekeeping. He promised Tavarus that when he returned, they would begin their plan to buy and flip real estate.
Rob felt liberated in Rio, renting a studio overlooking Ipanema Beach. He spent his days drinking, smoking marijuana, and people watching, clapping with everyone else when the sun went down. He soon made friends with other tourists and locals. He did not want to leave but returned when he sensed from speaking to Carl that something was wrong. He discovered that Carl had broken open his trunk and spent the money, pleading debts as an excuse.
Part 4, Chapter 10 Summary
In the summer of 2003, Rob had no job or money and moved back in with his mother. He returned to selling marijuana but found it stressful to sell on the streets of Newark, especially after selling to wealthy Yale students. Newark was more dangerous, and everyone involved in the drug trade seemed desperate. In August, Rob stopped dealing drugs after a supplier threatened him with a gun. Shortly afterward, he took a job teaching biology at St. Benedict’s. The students respected him, and he inspired them to focus on their futures. He advised them on how to “Newark-proof” themselves without “becoming a part of the hood” (240), and he warned them not to become involved with drugs.
In April 2005, Hobbs traveled to the Penn Relays in Philadelphia to meet up with Ty Cantey and Rob. It was the first time he had seen Rob in two years. Hobbs introduced his friends to his fiancée, Rebecca. Rob described Hobbs to Rebecca as “one of the good ones” (252).
Rob took out a mortgage on a dilapidated house on Greenwood Avenue, which was close to Chapman Street. He planned to renovate the house, rent it, and then sell it for a profit. He and Tavarus then hoped to buy other properties. Rob also visited Skeet regularly in prison and worked toward securing his father’s release on the basis that the decision to reverse his successful appeal was flawed.
Part 4, Chapter 11 Summary
Hobbs asked Rob to be a groomsman at his wedding, and they met for lunch. Hobbs announced he had sold his first novel while Rob talked about teaching and his plan to return to Rio. Hobbs’s wedding reception was the last time he ever saw Rob. Shortly afterward, Rob learned his father had terminal brain cancer.
Ignoring Oswaldo’s advice to leave Newark and old habits behind, Rob returned to drug dealing at night after spending his days teaching at St. Benedict’s. Oswaldo experienced another psychotic break after returning to Newark and working in a taco shop. Finally, he drove to Yale, where a Careers Services counselor admitted him to a graduate degree in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania.
Rob visited Rio again in the summer and set his sights on traveling to other countries, such as South Korea and Croatia. At the same time, he was appealing for his father’s right to medical treatment outside the prison. However, in 2006, Skeet died.
As Newark became even more dangerous, Mrs. Gamble moved away, leaving Curtis at 34 Smith Street. In the house’s basement, Rob used his scientific knowledge to develop his own strain of marijuana that he named Sour Diesel. He also became more determined to establish his house flipping business, which he named Peace Realty, and finally finished the renovation of the Greenwood house. In 2007, he passed the realtor’s exam on his third attempt. Rob decided that he would see out his fourth year at St. Benedict’s, continue dealing drugs, and save as much money as possible. He would then invest some of his savings in property, using the rest to support his mother and start graduate school. Rob told himself that once he had achieved this goal, he would stop dealing drugs. His vision extended to buying empty stores on South Orange Avenue and introducing new businesses that would revitalize the neighborhood. The rest of the Burger Boyz were excited by his plan.
One day, Curtis and Tavarus were concerned to see Boobie, a member of the Double II Set, parked outside 34 Smith Street. While Rob had not intentionally stolen business from the gang, the popularity of Sour Diesel had earned him many new clients. Curtis suggested calling the police, but Rob walked outside to speak to Boobie. Curtis and Tavarus watched nervously as the men conversed, and then Boobie laughed. Rob shared Boobie’s joint before he drove away.
Rob attended his final senior banquet at St. Benedict’s. Encountering Charles Cawley, he claimed he planned to start graduate school. However, Rob had missed the application deadlines, too absorbed in his plans for Peace Realty. Realizing that property profit margins were small in Newark, he focused on Ohio, traveling there on weekends to look for houses. However, the trips were expensive, and he needed to find another job. Rob attended his final Appalachian Trail hike, during which the students gave him an ovation and a school T-shirt. He then started a new job at Newark International Airport.
Part 4 Analysis
In Part 4, the memoir details how Rob struggles after Yale due to a combination of social barriers, personal choices, and the lingering impact of his Newark upbringing. In the aftermath of graduation, Rob initially experiences a period of stasis. While his classmates move on to careers and the next steps in their lives, he remains at Yale in a state of limbo. Describing how Rob takes custodial work on the campus, Hobbs comments: “Like the very first week of school, nobody looked at him and assumed he was anything but a janitor. Unlike the first week of school, he was one” (206). The observation highlights a significant shift in Rob’s life: Hobbs believes that instead of disproving racial and social stereotypes, he ended up conforming to them. At the same time, Hobbs points out that Rob is not solely responsible for his lack of progress. Although he is a Yale graduate, he is still socioeconomically disadvantaged. Rob does not possess the family connections that secured Hobbs his first job.
The memoir reintroduces the symbolism of Rio de Janeiro as Rob travels to the city that is at the center of his ambitions and aspirations. While Rio meets Rob’s expectations, Hobbs emphasizes its ephemeral nature as a goal. Rob enjoys the sense of freedom and lack of responsibilities he experiences in Brazil, but the idyllic lifestyle is unsustainable in the long term. Rob’s time in Rio is cut short by Carl’s theft, underlining the theme of The Benefits and Costs of Family and Community Loyalty. Carl was Rob’s family friend, and Rob trusted him implicitly. While Carl did help him to establish his marijuana business and sold fairly to him for a long time, he ends up stealing all of Rob’s money and derailing his plans for the future. Rob pays a high price for ignoring Drew’s warning that Carl is untrustworthy. His perception of Carl as “family” sets into motion a chain of events that take his life’s trajectory backward.
Rob’s return to living in Chapman Street with his mother and grandparents represents a drift back to his origins. Hobbs builds on the theme of Education as a Pathway to Opportunity and Isolation by contrasting Rob’s lackluster reception in Newark with the average Yale graduate. While most advertise and exploit their Yale education, “wearing the […] label like a badge” (233), Rob is feels stigmatized by his educational achievements. Reverting to his old habit of dealing marijuana, he finds his Yale education means others distrust him.
Furthermore, he has grown accustomed to selling to wealthy students in the non-threatening environment of a college campus. Rob is reminded of the harsher conditions of drug dealing in Newark when he is threatened with a gun. However, the experience puts him off only briefly. Rob’s ability to diffuse conflict is illustrated in his encounter with Boobie from the Double II Set, which ends with both men laughing and sharing a smoke. However, Hobbs suggests that this encounter fostered Rob’s complacency. His successful disarming of Boobie foreshadows the later confrontation where Rob is fatally unsuccessful in talking his way out of trouble.
The years 2002-2007 are as a chaotic period in Rob’s life. He expends a great deal of energy but gains little traction. His time as a biology teacher at St. Benedict’s marks another return to his origins. Hobbs emphasizes that, in many ways, teaching is the perfect career choice for Rob. While the role does not pay well, Rob’s academic abilities and leadership qualities are well utilized. The job also allows him to positively shape Newark’s next generation of young men. However, the low salary and the weight of Rob’s ambitions made the job unsustainable.
Rob’s nurturing of his pupils’ aspirations is ironic, given his own inability to escape the neighborhood. Similarly, the lectures he gives the boys on avoiding drugs contrasts sharply with his own dealing. Hobbs suggests that Rob’s feeling of responsibility for others ultimately prevents him from settling into his teaching role. Rob’s dissatisfaction stems from his responsibility toward his family and friends, and this turns out to be one of the costs of his loyalty: He wants to provide for his mother, help the Burger Boyz become rich, and free his father from jail. Consequently, his focus is scattered between teaching, drug dealing, Peace Realty, and appealing on his father’s behalf. Rob’s awkward encounter with Charles Cawley further highlights his stagnation, contrasting his former promise with his present reality.
Unlock all 57 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,100+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features: