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Author Talk: Trymaine Lee

A Thousand Ways to Die

Pulitzer and Emmy-winning journalist explores the impact of gun violence his own family and on Black America.

Trymaine Lee will delve into the powerful themes at the heart of A Thousand Ways to Die, his deeply reported and personal exploration of how gun violence, racism, and generational trauma have shaped Black life in America. Through Lee’s own family history and the stories of communities across the country, he examines the forces that have defined survival, loss, and resilience for generations.

With vivid storytelling and a journalist’s sharp eye, Lee brings forward the voices of those most affected; from families navigating grief to activists, historians, and everyday people whose lives reflect the broader truths of American inequality. This event offers a compelling look at how one writer’s investigation into his past opens a wider conversation about memory, identity, and the cost of violence in our society.

Register to attend and learn more about the author and book below.

About the Book

A deeply personal exploration of the generational impact of guns on the Black experience in America 
A few years ago, Trymaine Lee, though fit and only 38, nearly died of a heart attack. When his then five-year-old daughter, Nola, asked her daddy why, he realized that to answer her honestly, he had to confront what almost killed him—the weight of being a Black man in America; of bearing witness, as a journalist, to relentless Black death; and of a family history scarred by enslavement, lynching, the Great Migration, the also insidious racism of the North, and gun violence that stole the lives of two great-uncles, a grandfather, a stepbrother, and two cousins.

In this powerful narrative, Lee weaves together three strands: the long and bloody history of African Americans and guns; his work as a chronicler of gun violence, tallying the costs and riches generated by both the legal and illegal gun industries; and his own life story. With unflinching honesty he takes readers on a journey, from almost being caught up in gun violence as a young man, to tracing the legacy of the Middle Passage in Ghana through his ancestors’ footsteps, to confronting the challenges of representing his people in an overwhelmingly white and often hostile media world, and most importantly, to celebrating the enduring strength of his family and community.

In A Thousand Ways to Die, Lee answers Nola and all who seek a more just America. He shares the hard truths and complexities of the Black experience, but he also celebrates the beauty and resilience that is Nola’s legacy.

About the Author

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award winning journalist and correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. He’s the host of the “Into America” podcast where he covers the intersection of Blackness, power, and politics. A contributing author to the “1619 Project”, he has reported for The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A Thousand Ways to Die is his first book.

About The Moderator

Gene Demby is a founding member of NPRs Code Switch team, where he serves as a host of the show's podcast. In 2020, Code Switch was named Apple's inaugural Podcast Of The Year. Demby's essays for Code Switch have also earned him honors for commentary from the Online News Association. Prior to joining NPR, he served as the managing editor of HuffPost's BlackVoices. He began his professional journalism career at the New York Times, where he served in various roles.

Demby hails from Philadelphia and currently resides in Washington, D.C.

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