Story by Malcolm Burnley, The Philadelphia Citizen
MSNBC contributor and award-winning journalist Trymaine Lee shared insights from his new book, A Thousand Ways To Die, at a Citizen / Free Library Author event last week.
A near-death experience can change a person’s life. In the case of Trymaine Lee, the Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter and Camden County native, it reshaped the book he was writing.
When Lee suffered a serious heart attack a few years ago — despite being a fit and seemingly healthy 38-year-old at the time — it took him down a path of reflection and reporting that he could not have anticipated. He began to connect dots between his own heart attack and the stressful weight of living as a Black man in America. The end result, A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America, is his new book out this month.