Top 10 Nonfiction Books: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Winner: St. Louis Magazine's Editors' Choice Awards
In the tradition of such intimate explorations of race and inequality in America as The Other Wes Moore and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Little Brother tells the story of journalist Ben Westhoff's relationship with Jorell Cleveland through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and investigates Jorell's tragic fatal shooting at the age of nineteen.
In 2005, soon after Ben Westhoff moved to St. Louis, he joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program and was paired with Jorell Cleveland. Ben was twenty-eight, a white college grad from an affluent family in Minnesota. Jorell was eight, one of nine children from a poor, African American family living in Ferguson. But the two instantly connected. Ben and Jorell formed a bond stronger than nearly any other in their lives. When Ben met the woman who'd become his wife, she observed that Ben and Jorell were "a package deal." They were brothers.
In the summer of 2016, Jorell was shot at point blank range in broad daylight in the middle of the street, yet no one was charged in his death. Ben grappled with mourning Jorell, but also with a feeling of responsibility. As Jorell’s mentor, what could he have done differently? As a journalist, he had reported on gang life, interviewed crime kingpins, and even infiltrated drug labs in China. But now, he was investigating the life and death of someone he knew personally and examining what he did and did not know about his friend. Learning the truth about Jorell and the man who killed him required Ben to uncover a heartbreaking cycle of poverty, poor education, drug trafficking, and violence. Little Brother brilliantly combines a deeply personal history with a true-crime narrative that exposes the realities of life in communities like Ferguson all around the country.
READERS SAY
“‘Little Brother’ - a sleeper - is one of the best books I have read. The author painted a complete world of place and culture and of the people therein, the depths of their souls, the whys of their actions… I was sad to finish this book and to leave the people I had grown so attached to. I was sad to leave the author’s voice, the purity of his caring, the lack of ego, his beautiful writing. This is a book of depth of heart; a book of dogged pursuing of truth; a book of place ; a truly ‘can’t put it down’ read.” -Krista C.
“I couldn’t put this book down. It’s a personal story of tragedy and heartbreak but opens the door to so many bigger things. It’s a window into a world that is foreign to me yet the only world some people know—shaped by poverty, drugs, gangs, guns, racism, and other impossibly complicated influences. Now that I’ve come to the last page, I’m torn between the desire to start back on page 1 and read it again or to hand it over to a friend. All I know is this book does not belong on a shelf. It needs to keep being read.” -Sarah C.
“I finished your book about an hour ago. I was crying, mostly good tears…. I appreciate your honest retelling of how individuals that commit violent crime can also be loving and family oriented and possess limitless potential if given the support.” -Evan Goyke, Wisconsin State Representative
“A writer of such skill, such heart, such reflection, such honesty, such reality rarely comes into view. Mr. Westhoff shares his heart and mind with us all. His writing is clear, concise, heart-filled, and very, very real. I will admit tears formed and fell as I read his words.” -Bruce V.
CRITICS SAY
“[I]mportant and a must-read…. Westhoff’s account of the families, the male bravado, the petty crime, the violence, the art and aesthetic of its rap culture, all of this is worth the price of the book.”
-Gerald Early, The Common Reader
“This briskly paced story showcases Westhoff’s excellent forensic skills…Certainly, there is enough drama in Little Brother to compose a Wagnerian epic.”
"I finished Little Brother in one day. It humanizes people and communities who have long been dehumanized. So much of it hits close to home. Ben Westhoff has taken a lot of crazy risks in his work before, but it’s the emotional exploration here that makes it his bravest work yet.”
— Aisha Sultan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist
“Little Brother is a memoir, a double bildungsroman, and a murder mystery. By combining these forms, it goes deeper than any one of them could.”
—Jeanette Cooperman, L.A. Review of Books
"Ben Westhoff, Little Brother: Love, Tragedy, and my Search for the Truth is a very good narrative by a very good author.”
—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution
"The creative and original telling of a young man's life and death on the streets and the Big Brother who sought his killer."
— Sam Quinones, author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic
"With Little Brother, Ben Westhoff takes a relentless journalistic approach to discovering truths about a personal tragedy. Masterful."
—Toriano Porter, Kansas City Star editorial board member and author of The Pride of Park Avenue