A near-death experience can change a person’s life. In the case of Trymaine Lee, the Pulitzer-prize-winning reporter and Camden County native, it reshaped the book he was writing.

When Lee suffered a serious heart attack a few years ago — despite being a fit and seemingly healthy 38-year-old at the time — it took him down a path of reflection and reporting that he could not have anticipated. He began to connect dots between his own heart attack and the stressful weight of living as a Black man in America. The end result, A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America, is his new book out this month.

“This book didn’t initially set out to be this super personal exploration of my own family’s experiences alongside America’s,” said Lee, an MSNBC contributor.

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