Man in the Mirror
Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
From acclaimed journalist Anand Giridharadas, a groundbreaking feat of reporting on a tragic encounter in a New York subway car that held up a mirror to a troubled and divided nation
“A tour de force of sharp-eyed reporting, powerful narrative, and heartbreaking tragedy. . . . Brilliant and spellbinding.”
—Robert B. Reich, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Coming Up Short
In 2023, the lives of two men—Jordan Neely, a homeless man known in better days for his Michael Jackson impersonations, and Daniel Penny, an ex-Marine who had moved to the big city seeking more than Long Island could offer—collided tragically in a New York subway car. In Man in the Mirror, award-winning reporter and bestselling author Anand Giridharadas renders this deadly encounter and its aftermath as a propulsive crime story that opens onto a larger human drama: the search for belonging in an age of estrangement.
Inhabiting the perspectives of an unforgettable cast of characters, Giridharadas immerses us in the places where this story plays out, from the corridors of power in City Hall to subway benches where New Yorkers spend the night, from a Marine Corps base to a Harlem church in mourning—and, ultimately, to a courtroom where a riveting battle unfolds. In his painstakingly reported, richly novelistic narrative, these characters’ strivings and struggles—to care for loved ones and strangers, to protect the public, to seek justice—reveal the humanity behind the headlines. Through one character’s eyes and then another’s, Giridharadas presents a chapter of American history too often reduced to divisive clickbait as something far more complex and full of life.
At once panoramic in its scope and finely detailed in its emotional immediacy, Man in the Mirror is a tour de force of narrative reporting and an indispensable portrait of our times.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
A shocking death becomes a deeply human examination of a city in crisis in this probing work of narrative journalism from Anand Giridharadas. Jordan Neely was known for performing Michael Jackson routines on the street before struggling with mental illness and homelessness. On a subway in 2023, former marine Daniel Penny put a distressed Neely in a chokehold that killed him. Giridharadas follows the lives that converged that day, then widens his focus to the outreach workers, public officials, advocates, and others grappling with the failures surrounding the death. His immersive reporting turns sprawling institutional failures into intimate stories of people trying to make sense of what went wrong. Moving from subway platforms and homeless encampments to City Hall and the courtroom, Giridharadas shows how competing ideas about compassion and responsibility can carry life-or-death consequences. Man in the Mirror resists easy answers without losing sight of the people paying the price, and it brings remarkable clarity and compassion to a tragedy that became a national flashpoint.
