What can one man’s tragic death on a New York subway reveal about what ails American society? Join award-winning journalist Anand Giridharadas in conversation with legendary editor Tina Brown for a discussion of his new book, Man in the Mirror: Hope, Struggle, and Belonging in an American City, a searching work of narrative nonfiction described by Min Jin Lee as “a gripping American tragedy.”
In 2023, a homeless man named Jordan Neely, known locally for his Michael Jackson impersonations, was killed following an emotional outburst on a New York subway by an ex-Marine attempting to subdue him. Giridharadas reconstructs the incident and its aftermath through the lives surrounding it, creating a layered portrait of a city grappling with anxieties about public safety, race, masculinity, and moral judgment.
In the tradition of recent conversations with writers like Patrick Radden Keefe and Jon Krakauer, this is a chance to hear a master of modern nonfiction discuss what Neely’s story reveals about America’s fears for public safety and a fraying social safety net, and how great nonfiction writing can recover the moral complexity that public spectacle so often erases.
