The Holly

The Holly is a triumphant achievement that fully brings the iceberg of criminal justice issues to the surface and exposes it for all to see. Not only is it one of the most important nonfiction books to be published in recent years, but it should be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the extent to which this country’s criminal justice system is currently broken….It is a 300-plus-page condemnation of police procedures, gang-related justice missteps, and systemic racism that led not only to Terrance Roberts shooting Hasan Jones, but to so much gang violence over so many years.

Drawing on rich research and extensive reporting, Rubinstein sets out to chart the social and historical forces that joined two men and a 9-millimeter automatic pistol on a late September day, in the neighborhood known as the Holly … By exposing the state surveillance, the crooked policing, the structural racism, the broken promises and the poverty that had plagued the Holly for decades, [Rubinstein] helps us realize that the problem of violence is far greater than two men and one gun.

Rubinstein does not merely retell the events before and after the shooting but rather illuminates the dynamics that help explain the Black rage that has spilled into American streets over the past two years… Rubinstein artfully connects the dots between the rise of gangs, the long-ago shooting that put Roberts on trial, and the ongoing protests sparked by unjust police killings of Black citizens… His reporting often found him asking uncomfortable questions of both gang members and law enforcement officials, each trying to protect their turf. That kind of reporting takes guts… For those of us who are suckers for telling details and character complexity in nonfiction narratives, Rubinstein delivers… It’s an important read.

The Holly is a powerful, up-close look at the criminal, political, and economic forces that can erode a community. But Rubinstein makes it clear this story isn’t just about Denver….If you want to understand the origins of the violence ravaging many urban areas and the challenges faced by one man trying to stop it, read The Holly.

Denver’s racial history is explored superbly in Julian Rubinstein’s compelling new book, “The Holly – Five Bullets, One Gun, and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood.” Northeast Denver is the primary setting of this page-turner, which explains why Blacks populated Five Points and Park Hill. Rubinstein addresses Black flight from America’s South, Colorado’s Klan past, redlining and court-ordered school desegregation. To write “The Holly,” Rubinstein deeply embedded himself in Denver’s ongoing gang war…”

Rubinstein connects historical dots between two volatile and externally fueled cycles of birth, death and rebirth on a pivotal Northeast Park Hill block. He also draws parallels between the late 1960s and the current era, anxious times at the intersection of Black politics and surveillance and provocation by police…. For people who didn’t know the history when the shooting was in the news, Rubinstein turns that day from a caricature into a Renaissance painting…. While the book hops to Los Angeles or Ferguson, Missouri, for critical context, its dedication to a short list of specific Denver settings is one of its greatest strengths.

The Holly serves as a case study of what has happened and is happening in cities across the country… There are so many threads to this book and Rubinstein braids them together in a compelling multi-generational saga… Rubinstein details the intricacies and contradictions that exist between law enforcement and Black America through the lens of Northeast Denver and the shocking shooting of a gang member by a local anti-gang activist. He also manages to shine a light on the cost of gutting local newsrooms… For anyone who wants to understand systematic racism in tangible ways, Julian Rubinstein’s investigative work makes it undeniable.

The book… is an explosive story that sheds light on the issues rarely seen or covered. Among the findings are the misuse of informants and the questionable operations of America’s premiere federal anti-gang and anti-gun program, Project Safe Neighborhoods. It also draws parallels between the civil rights movement and present-day America by asking whether activists in gentrifying communities are being targeted by those in power.

The Holly is a book that should be written about every city. It is a fearless dive into the stories of oppressed people in Denver. It carefully constructs the backdrops of purposeful economic underdevelopment, the destruction of organizations like the Panthers, and the growing power of the police and criminal justice system to tell its story. It honestly shows a collection of struggles still in motion…. It provides a valuable education to a young movement about the power of the state and its many arms, and gives hope that those struggling for justice can fight, and can win.

Patiently unraveling the strands of personal, communal and national history that are knotted up in Roberts’ shooting of Jones, Rubinstein traces their origins and ends up with a thoroughly gripping portrait of how power operates in the modern American city.

In a quest to find answers, Rubinstein moved back to Denver and followed Roberts and other residents of Denver’s northeast Park Hill neighborhood for years. What he discovered could rival any true-crime program.

The book is a microcosm — the story of Terrance Roberts, told all the way through the recent Elijah McClain protests last summer. But it is also a macrocosm — of Denver’s racial history, of the eruption of gangs nationally and locally, of law enforcement’s attempts and failure to combat gang violence. The book also delves into many of the issues facing growing, gentrifying cities like Denver, including the social costs of urban redevelopment, community displacement and rise in crime. At its essence, it’s the story of a neighborhood, Northeast Park Hill, and one of its hubs, The Holly, which was burned down in 2008 in an act of gang retribution. Rubinstein allows its African American community to tell its own stories, while … steering a compelling narrative. The Holly is a must-read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Denver and the social and socio-economic issues we are grappling with today.

Seldom have I encountered a feat of storytelling as memorable or richly textured as The Holly. With the utmost skill and empathy, Julian Rubinstein weaves together the absorbing tales of a city roiled by breakneck growth and a man determined to elude the ghosts of his destructive past. The result is a book that poignantly illuminates the joys and pitfalls of reinvention in America, a country forever struggling to live up to its mighty promise.

Julian Rubinstein dives deep beneath the deafening sound of a gun shot to reveal the layers of violence that America reaps on its inner cities. Through the compelling life story of Terrance ‘ShowBizz’ Roberts, the Apostle Paul of Park Hill, The Holly forces us to bear witness to a series of underground wars in the invisible parts of our cities that have been left to die for too long. Rubinstein just wanted to ‘pay attention’ to his hometown’s gang violence but uncovered a rich and tragic history of gangsterism that connects the street corner with the courthouse and the boardroom. This gripping story of political collusion, murder, and redemption is a page turner with a propulsive weight of urgency.

Every city has a parallel society that many residents choose not to see. Julian Rubinstein digs deep into what he calls the ‘invisible Denver’ of his hometown to find astounding cross-currents of trouble, heroism and love. Only through his careful reporting could the redevelopment of a shopping center resemble a Colorado mining boom and the leadup to a ribbon-cutting at a Boys and Girls Club assume the drumbeats of a march to the executioner.

If you, like others, have wondered about the connections between the end of the civil rights/Black Power movements and the onset of America’s gang war, or whether activists who oppose gentrification and racist policies are the targets of informants, this book is mandatory reading. My father, the head of the Denver Black Panthers, was persecuted for his advocacy in his time in a way not unlike the way Terrance Roberts is now, with deadly consequences. The Holly is a decades-long crime thriller straight outta the shadows of invisible Denver, an unforgettable tale you won’t hear in the mainstream media and a riveting wake-up call to activists, community organizers, and criminal justice advocates.

Don’t let the snow-capped backdrop of the Rocky Mountains fool you. In The Holly, Julian Rubinstein reveals Denver, Colorado to be a crucible of so much that’s wrong in America: the chasms of race and class that divide the nation; corrupt policing; systemic discrimination. This story of struggle spans the era of the Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter. Law enforcement is after the hero of this book—Terrance Roberts—in a drama brought to life by Rubinstein’s fearless reporting.