“These photographs, this story, they are hard to deal with, yet one goes back to the pages, because we have the freedom to turn away from the tragedy, but the family and friends of Tyler Kobe Nichols do not. Their tributes are eloquent, as is the testimony in their faces. This is not black-on-black crime, this is the American way of death, as Ostrander’s haunting work so powerfully tells us.”

—Darryl Pinckney, Author of High Cotton and Black Deutschland

“This engrossing book reminds us how often such stories are ignored or overlooked. A loss so inexplicable might be forgotten by all but those who knew Tyler Kobe Nichols without these images and testimonies. The empty living rooms, barber’s chairs and neighborhood corners are filled with his presence. He is alive in the lives he touched. He is alive in us. I keep thinking about the condolence card from his mother’s coworkers. We people who did not know him have a chance to know him here. Our sympathies become commemorations; our prayers become praise songs. We are given the gift of witness.”

—Terrance Hayes, Poet

“How can we do justice to a gentle, openhearted 21-year old who was violently, randomly murdered? How can the particulars of his life and character outlast the horror of his death? Photographs often seize on extremities: the ugly evidence of the crime, the uncontainable grief of friends and family. What Spencer Ostrander gives us instead is a quiet space where each mourner thinks and remembers, confronts and yields to loss, hour by hour and day by day. Here is the evidence of things seen, known, and loved: Tyler’s playground basketball hoop; Tyler’s face tattooed on the arms of family and friends; the red barbershop chair where he got his last haircut; the memorial candles glowing softly; a cousin touching a picture frame as if his hand could bestow life on Tyler’s image. Death imposes solitude on every mourner—we each bear the burden of loss alone. And yet, as we turn the pages of this quietly powerful book, we also feel the collective sorrow of this family. Their closeness. Their valor in accepting the burdens and range of grief. Ostrander does not let us presume. He lets us honor their mourning with empathic respect.”

—Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer Prize for Criticism and author of Negroland

“These photographs, this story, they are hard to deal with, yet one goes back to the pages because we have the freedom to turn away from the tragedy, but the family and friends of Tyler Kobe Nichols do not. Their tributes are eloquent, as is the testimony in their faces. This is not black-on-black crime, this is the American way of death, as Ostrander’s haunting work so powerfully tells us.” —Darryl Pinckney, author of High Cotton and Black Deutschland