{"product_id":"tragedy-of-true-crime-four-guilty-men-and-the-stories-that-define-us","title":"Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA New York Times Notable Book of 2025 * An NPR Best Book of the Year * A Kirkus Best of 2025\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eIn 2001, John J. Lennon killed a man on a Brooklyn Street. Now he's a journalist, working from behind bars, trying to make sense of it all.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Tragedy of True Crime\u003c\/i\u003e is a first-person journalistic account of the lives of four men who have killed, written by a man who has killed. Lennon entered the New York prison system with a sentence of 28 years to life but after he stepped into a writing workshop at Attica Correctional Facility, his whole life changed. Reporting from the cell block and the prison yard, Lennon challenges our obsession with true crime by telling the full life stories of men now serving time for the lives they took. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThese men have completely different backgrounds -- Robert Chambers, a preppy Manhattanite turned true crime celebrity; Milton E. Jones, a seventeen-year-old coaxed from burglary into something far darker; and Michael Shane Hale, a gay man caught in a crime of passion -- and all are searching to find meaning and redemption behind bars. Lennon's reporting is intertwined with his own story, from a young man seduced by the infamous gangster culture of New York City to a celebrated prison journalist. The same desire echoes throughout the lives of these four men: to become more than murderers. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA first-of-its-kind book of immersive prison journalism, \u003ci\u003eThe Tragedy of True Crime\u003c\/i\u003e poses fundamental questions about the stories we tell and who gets to tell them. What essential truth do we lose when we don't consider all that comes before an act of unthinkable violence? And what happens to the convicted after the cell gate locks?","brand":"John J Lennon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52982049079660,"sku":"9781250858245","price":29.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0912\/7985\/1884\/files\/9781250858245-us.jpg?v=1765555571","url":"https:\/\/commercestreetbooks.com\/products\/tragedy-of-true-crime-four-guilty-men-and-the-stories-that-define-us","provider":"Commerce Street Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}