Little Brother

February 28, 2022
The death of a young Black man begets a thought-provoking look at the “ever-turning wheel of violence” in this sincere if flawed account from journalist Westhoff (Fentanyl, Inc.). A well-off college grad, Westhoff joined the Big Brothers Big Sisters program in St. Louis in 2005 after learning how it benefited children of incarcerated parents. Notwithstanding their vastly different backgrounds, he and his “Little,” Jorell Cleveland—“a tiny eight-year-old who possessed a gigawatt smile”—quickly bonded and remained close for nearly a decade. Despite his affection for Jorell, Westhoff chaffed against the realities of mentoring a child from an unstable home. “There was a part of me,” he recalls “that felt a dubious responsibility to try to fix everything.” But, as he reveals, his influence stopped short of saving Jorell’s life when he was fatally shot in 2016 at age 19. Showcasing his investigative chops, Westhoff reconstructs Jorell’s final months to untangle the “socioeconomic factors” that led to his possibly gang-related murder. Yet oftentimes, Westhoff’s gaze as a self-described “privileged” white outsider feels, well, exactly like that—especially when he writes of the drug dealing and gunslinging (“two more aspects of Jorell’s life that he kept from me”) that Jorell became involved in before his death. Well-meaning as Westhoff’s work is, it only skims the surface of a much more complicated story.

April 1, 2022
In 2005, young, white reporter Westhoff (Fentanyl, Inc., 2019) met Jorell, an 8-year-old African American boy, through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program in St. Louis, Missouri. Shy and open-hearted, Jorell lived with his single dad and siblings in a rough neighborhood of the city before moving to the suburb of Ferguson. Jorell and Westhoff stayed in contact when the author moved to New York City and then Los Angeles, even spending summers together. When, after he and his wife returned to St. Louis, Westhoff reconnected with Jorell, he discovered that his ""little brother"" was not on track to graduate from high school and seemed paranoid about unnamed enemies. In August 2016, Jorell was shot and killed by an unknown attacker. In his grief, Westhoff began investigating Jorell's murder and discovered that his little brother's life and environment were more complex than he'd known. An examination of gun violence, trauma, and the communities they indelibly mark, Little Brother is an affecting tribute to Jorell and other young Black men whose lives are cut devastatingly short.

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April 1, 2022

Westoff's (Fentanyl, Inc.) most personal book yet explores the multilayered communal aspects of grief, justice, and loss as he investigates the murder of Jorell Cleveland. Westoff was Cleveland's "big brother" as part of the Big Brother, Big Sisters program. Westhoff's quest to solve the murder reveals complicated layers of his little brother's life he knew little about. Employing his journalistic skills and connections to solve the crime, the author exposes the failures of the justice system when it comes to young Black men. The narrative struggles at times with Westoff's inability to decenter himself from Cleveland's lived experience. Hearing more about Cleveland through the lens of his father and siblings would give a better picture of who he was beyond his death and his life in Westhoff's world. Westhoff argues strengthening gun laws and creating a universal income would address some core issues that helped create Cleveland's situation. Cleveland's story is an all-too-common tragedy, and Westhoff personal relationship and journalistic talent ensures his little brother is remembered as more than a statistic. VERDICT A heartfelt account of a life cut short, and the jarring inequities that contributed to the tragedy.--Bart Everts

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April 15, 2022
A journalist seeks to tease out the truth behind the murder of a young Black man. Jorell was an at-risk child in a rough part of St. Louis, where his single father was trying to raise eight children; his mother was in prison. Westhoff, a White journalist and author of Original Gangstas and Fentanyl, Inc., came into the picture as a volunteer in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. During a stint in Brooklyn, Westhoff brought Jorell to the city: "We looked out from the top of the Empire State Building. We explored art galleries in Chelsea. He tried sushi for the first time." Still, searching for an identity and as a footloose adolescent at the time that racial violence was widespread in his hometown, punctuated by the rioting in Ferguson in which Jorell participated, the young man entered dangerous territory, literally and figuratively. When he was shot and killed in 2016, the police took little interest. Following clues and talking with witnesses and Jorell's friends, Westhoff worked to find answers, and he recounts his quest in diligent yet sometimes stultifying detail. "Learning the truth about Jorell's killer required me to understand the troubled history of St. Louis, how discrimination and pervasive poverty has shaped life for millions," he writes, and there's plenty of sociology to follow. His investigation also forced him to confront his own identity and privilege. Having narrowed his list of likely suspects down to three Black men and closing in on the likeliest, he raises a hard point: "Was it right for me, as a white person, to try to get him thrown in prison?" He adds, "Especially in the post-George Floyd era, with millions demanding societal change and criminal justice reform, this was a pertinent question." It's a question he answers in thought-provoking fashion. A sometimes plodding but ultimately satisfying study in true crime.

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