Third Place Books presents Jeff Hobbs, in conversation with Helen Thorpe

Jeff Hobbs, in conversation with Helen Thorpe - Show Them You're Good

Thursday, August 20, 2020 - 7:00pm

Virtual Event

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The bestselling, critically acclaimed, award-winning author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace presents a brilliant and transcendent work that closely follows four Los Angeles high school boys as they apply to college.

Four teenage boys are high school seniors at two very different schools within the city of Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the nation with nearly 700,000 students. Author Jeff Hobbs, writing with heart, sensitivity, and insight, stunningly captures the challenges and triumphs of being a young person confronting the future -- both their own and the cultures in which they live -- in contemporary America.

Filled with portraits of secondary characters including friends, peers, parents, teachers, and girlfriends, this masterwork of immersive journalism is both intimate and profound and destined to ignite conversations about class, race, expectations, cultural divides, and even the concept of fate. Hobbs's portrayal of these young men is not only revelatory and relevant, but also moving, eloquent, and indelibly powerful.

Jeff Hobbs graduated with a BA in English language and literature from Yale in 2002, where he was awarded the Willets and Meeker prizes for his writing. He is the author of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace and The Tourists. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children.

Helen Thorpe was born in London to Irish parents and grew up in New Jersey. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, The New Yorker, Slate, and Harper's Bazaar. Her radio stories have aired on This American Life and Sound Print. She is the author of Just Like Us, Soldier Girls, and The Newcomers and lives in Denver.

Show Them You're Good: A Portrait of Boys in the City of Angels the Year Before College (Hardcover)
By Jeff Hobbs
$28.00
ISBN: 9781982116330
Availability: On our shelves now at one or more of our stores
Published: Scribner - August 18, 2020