>> it now, rob was my best friend for four years when i watched him receive his zeal diploma in 2002, he seemed not just destined, but chosen to fulfill all of his dreams, on the expectations people had for him. obviously he didn't. he was murdered by men in ski masks. and i was at his funeral just wondering what happened in the nine years, what happened during the first 18 years of his life, what happened during the four years that i knew had that would precipitate, i don't know if you call it fate, but it ends such as various. you know, rob was the one who is without a doubt going to succeed spectacularly. he was brilliant.

he was the groomsmen and my wedding and this was a terrible, painful mystery and i needed to know. and once i began to realize the broader issues that his story encapsulates, the fact that his wife could mean some pain much bigger and the love people had for him, i just felt like i had to write this book. i didn't owe him anything, that these were issues he talked about during his life extensively. and if a college aged kids could admit his life in a slightly different direction because of the way rob's life admitted a downward direction, that seemed valuable. >> what was rob's gray area as

the right? >> 's gray area. >> was it drugs? >> yeah, he sold drugs. he sold drugs in college. he sold marijuana out of our room. but because he never spent any money, we always assumed he was saving up for graduate school or helping our family. but if that was not honorable exactly. it was practical, it was something he could do and because it was marijuana, this is a college dorm, it seems safe . so i felt a lot of guilt associated with that. it felt like he could not give rob advice because of the way he grew up in newark. back in newark, his friends felt that they couldn't give them advice because he had gone to jail. so i would say that is his gray

area that he's stumbling through his 20s, like everybody does, with a lot more at stake. he's surrounded by people who love him, but people who feel helpless to, you know, help them through. as far as the drugs, it does feel like that went much further than money. the marijuana was really important to him. it asserted a bridge through his days. i mentioned sort of a constant stress and a constant striving to make his life more palatable to others. i remember i was asking him why he smoked so much out of curiosity and he said life is hard. when i smoke a joint i can

study, i can sit back, i could just chill. i can just be. you know, he seemed like he deserved it. he works hard. he wasn't a student in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, which is as about as easy as it sounds. but i think marijuana with them and he felt he could control its effect on him in the commerce for which was involved. he felt like he could be the man. >> could ultimately lead to his death? >> yeah, very much so. he was murdered in a basement surrounded by marijuana. again, three men in ski masks. this is the same basement where he once gathered with his high school friends to tutor them on their hallmark. but he had an opportunity where

he felt like he could make a lump sum with a lot of tedious work in a dangerous area and the lump sum, you know, he was close and he thought the money would get him over the gap and sort of on word towards a successful life, whatever the word success ended up meeting for him. >> jeff hobbs, what did rob peace's family think about you writing this book? >> i was very nurse approaching them about it. his father was already passed away. his mother had just endured a loss. you know, i called her on the phone. she is a quiet, thoughtful lady.

she knew me from college. i explained my intention. jackie's fun consolation since rob's death was she says i believe my son influenced a lot of people. and i told her that maybe he still might be able to. not obviously an upper-middle-class white man, in an impoverished neighborhood that is 90% african-american. there is a huge discomfort there. i am telling these people's stories. i struggled with that. i will strive that in almost all cases, drug dealers, perhaps family, the students he todd,

teachers who coached him, teammates from the water polo team, just people around town who she hung out with in bars. our mutual affection for rob was where we began our conversations really broke down those walls very quick we. and i thought, that is a testament to rob's influence. >> you can read the full story of "the short and tragic life of robert peace" by a jeff hobbs. comes out in the fall of 2014. >> next from book expo america committee annual trade show in new york city come a panel discussion about how a book is created. this is about 50 minutes.

>> you just heard in the last two days? is this on? >> hello, everyone. welcome to josh [inaudible] -- american library association. i just wanted to say before we introduced our moderator that if we have a need again writers are long-term writers, we have ways to help you do that and i'm going to leave authors brochures outside for you. now i'd like to introduce most of you in the audience know her name very well. she's the editor of the journal and she has moderated panels for the conference is for many years

now. so without further ado, here is barbara. >> thank you, sally. thank you for asking me to do this. i appreciate the opportunity to talk about a good bet. again, welcome to the journey of a good book from writer to reader. i recall the very first united for a library book trip as we called it had was when united for libraries was an algonquin books. love, loss of what i wore in 1995. nearly 2000 years ago. still working that algonquin. i like that. it's also appropriate to be doing is your name at particular book with a height of five because it is a book about his journey. several journeys undertaken in 1886 by members of the pope family. first the about the ulysses

abandons his family in western minnesota without explanation for what is revealed to be a stunning moral quest. his sons, eli and little teeny follow him seeking out and finally his wife, credit enhancement to the montana badlands after sunset has been in the truth about her marriage. so this is a novel about the consequences of our actions, whether we are willing to answer for them and how much we are willing to sacrifice to make things right in the world. at the same time also captures sword as the social environmental degradation of the late 1880s. there is to reduce native population taking its last stand in the buffalo taken their last nfl. all this is told in exactly the language that wastes no time just as one cannot afford to waste time with you or any journey like the posts. i decide is defined in the book is the rough country between the yellowstone emissary bergersen also represents the support

device in our lives. a quick word about our panelists. at the end can appear >> is the agent for this book. kathy poirier senior editor of algonquin so the person responsible for getting it into print. the person really responsible is the author that anger himself and right next to me the person who does the publicity that gets the news about this book out to you and to me. just a little more background. he grew up in minnesota that country. he's the mfa director at the minutes state university and graduate students which are word among other honors. his first novel was undiscovered country published in 2008 and in the early 1990s, he and his brother, lynn, who wrote peace like a river actually wrote a series of mysteries under the pen name of al anger and sort of doing research to find out what i could remember about it

because i didn't have the book on hand, we did post about it, but i particular like the headline. when anger shares others' talent. i also cited the brotherly thing which i thought was good is interesting because the las vegas review journal since we're all heading there soon i thought i would give that a quote. so to get started right away, the journey of a book always starts with the author and there's that inevitable cliché question, so how did this novel, though? where did you get your ideas and try to make this a little more original. i want to go to the very back of the book where there's a set of acknowledgments were lynn says thanks to my parents and grandparents for their granting me a at the old times. there's also an author's note with a the bibliography of nine books on references to hornaday expedition can which is a buffalo hunt sponsored by the smithsonian and the ouachita

incident, an attack by custer's seventh calvary on an indian village. they figure largely in the book and they will offense. harry had very real offense that has been turned into a truly lovely, engrossing, readable novel that we are here to find out how that happens, starting with where you got your ideas and why were you thinking your parents and grandparents? >> yeah, great questions. thank you, barbara for that introduction in december at the book i wish i could memorize that. i think my parents and grand parents because they're a big storytellers. my great grandfather on my father's side homesteaded in north dakota in 1883. there's a family legend that i think is true in 1884, which was one year after he began homesteading the land in

southeastern dakota that one morning a bison wandered up to a stock tank behind the sod farm he built and he shot the bison and that was probably the last wild buffalo east of the james river in dakota territory. so i heard that story growing up and i was obsessed with buffalo and with that animal. as i got older, i read a lot of history when i was young. when i got older the destruction of the bison of course was connected to the decimation of the indian tribes are not part of the world. and so, my excitement about bison became a bit more complicated and i sta