Just The Right Book With Roxanne Coady

It is not often that you read a book that is both heartbreaking, infuriating, inspiring, eye-opening, and riveting. Nicholas Dawidoff’s new book, The Other Side of Prospect, brilliantly uses the particular story of the Newhallville neighborhood of New Haven, Connecticut, and a young black man wrongly convicted of murder to tell the universal story of the violence, poverty, and injustice that exists in too many of our American cities. There is a reason Nicholas has been a finalist for the Pulitzer, a Guggenheim Fellow, and the recipient of a slew of other honors and fellowships. He wraps his compassion and journalistic devotion to research and details into a story that takes us into his grip, leaving us more informed, more understanding, and hopefully more committed to being part of a solution. As James Baldwin said, “If one wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprote