---
product_id: 23737282
title: "While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness"
brand: "eli sanders"
price: "29728CFA"
currency: XOF
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 8
category: "Books"
url: https://www.desertcart.sn/products/23737282-while-the-city-slept-a-love-lost-to-violence-young
store_origin: SN
region: Senegal
---

# While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness

**Brand:** eli sanders
**Price:** 29728CFA
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness by eli sanders
- **How much does it cost?** 29728CFA with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.sn](https://www.desertcart.sn/products/23737282-while-the-city-slept-a-love-lost-to-violence-young)

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- eli sanders enthusiasts

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## Description

Review
        	
        	
        		
        		
	        		
						
			        		One of Library Journal&#x2019;s 10 Best Books of the YearOne of Mother Jones&#x2019;s&#xA0;20 Notable Books of the YearOne of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch&#x2019;s Best Books of the Year&#x201C;Expertly crafted . . . [Sanders&#x2019;] evenhanded reporting and emotional commitment to the story make for gripping reading.&#x201D; &#x2014;The Washington Post&#x201C;A heartbreaking&#x2014;and compelling&#x2014;story from every angle . . . Americans have long been fascinated by true-crime stories, from Truman Capote&#x2019;s 1966 masterpiece,&#xA0;In Cold Blood, through this year&#x2019;s binge-worthy TV series&#xA0;Making a Murderer. The bad guy is always mesmerizing. What makes a person go to that dark side? Sanders works hard to provide the answers. . . . [He] does a terrific job of telling the life stories of all three principal characters.&#x201D; &#x2014;The Philadelphia Inquirer&#x201C;[A] disturbing, sometimes-horrifying story of true crime and justice only partially served.&#x201D; &#x2014;The Huffington Post,&#xA0;&#x201C;11 Books That Grab You from Page One&#x201D; &#x201C;Inspiring . . . From a harrowing crime, it draws powerful lessons for our mental health and criminal justice systems that can&#x2019;t be ignored.&#x201D;&#xA0;&#x2014;Sister Helen Prejean, #1&#xA0;New York Times bestselling author of&#xA0;Dead Man Walking&#x201C;An arresting narrative . . . Certainly a story worth telling with lessons well worth learning. . . . It&#x2019;s heartbreaking all the way around.&#x201D; &#x2014;The Seattle Times &#x201C;Written with great sensitivity and even greater beauty.&#x201D; &#x2014;Jeff Hobbs,&#xA0;New York Times&#xA0;bestselling author of&#xA0;The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace&#x201C;Gripping . . . Moving and unsettling . . . Told with incredible sensitivity.&#x201D; &#x2014;Minneapolis Star Tribune&#x201C;While the City Slept reveals the American landscape of a horrific crime.&#xA0;Eli Sanders, with a rare quality of attention, does this clearly and judiciously. Because of his outstanding reporting, we see not only the complex workings of one&#x2019;s environment on the course of one&#x2019;s life, but also how what we consider a tragedy is almost an inevitability&#x2014;and how, of course, it doesn&#x2019;t have to be.&#x201D; &#x2014;Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, New York Times bestselling author of Random Family&#x201C;Compassionate . . . A meticulous indictment of the way America reckons with mental illness.&#x201D; &#x2014;Mother Jones&#x201C;Engrossing, elegantly written . . . A story that we need to hear.&#x201D; &#x2014;Seattle Post-Intelligencer&#x201C;A gripping and sensitive account.&#x201D; &#x2014;St. Louis Post-Dispatch&#x201C;Riveting . . . Absorbing and meticulous.&#x201D; &#x2014;BookPage&#x201C;Told with care, compassion, and the kind of details that will force you to catch your breath.&#x201D; &#x2014;The Stranger&#x201C;The author&#x2019;s opening pages are among the most immediate and breathtaking in modern true-crime literature, as evocative as any moment of&#xA0;In Cold Blood&#xA0;or&#xA0;Helter Skelter.&#x201D; &#x2014;Kirkus Reviews,&#xA0;starred review&#x201C;Astonishing . . . Pair with Jill Leovy&#x2019;s&#xA0;Ghettoside&#xA0;for powerful . . . analysis of the failures of our criminal justice system. . . . It&#x2019;s heartbreaking, infuriating, required reading.&#x201D; &#x2014;Library Journal,&#xA0;starred review&#x201C;An unflinching portrait of the human casualties of one city&#x2019;s and, by extrapolation, our country&#x2019;s overburdened health-care and judicial systems.&#x201D; &#x2014;Booklist,&#xA0;starred review&#x201C;Gripping . . . Moving . . . Sanders&#x2019;s meticulous narrative [is] a disturbing indictment of society&#x2019;s neglect of the mentally ill.&#x201D; &#x2014;Publishers Weekly &#x201C;This book is important. . . . Sanders writes with an uncommon empathy. . . . On both a human level and a policy level,&#xA0;While the City Slept makes a vital contribution and deserves a wide and receptive readership.&#x201D; &#x2014;NWLawyer &#x201C;The great achievement of this book is that it shows how any crime is ultimately a failure of systems and of citizens, and that to some degree we are all complicit when a person who needs help is cast aside. To show empathy for a criminal, especially a criminal who has committed such a violent act, ennobles the process and purpose of journalism.&#x201D; &#x2014;Dan Zak, author of&#xA0;Almighty&#x201C;Superb, pulse-pounding . . . Moving and mesmerizing . . . Grimly fascinating . . . Hair-raising . . . Sanders . . . is extremely sure-handed in his recreations of the lives, loves, and losses of his protagonists. . . . Every public official in a position to effect change in the mental health system ought to read this book and reflect deeply on its lessons. The rest of us can simply be moved to the tears summoned by the enduring love, tentative hope, and inconsolable pain of this searing human tragedy.&#x201D; &#x2014;BookBrowse&#x201C;The book is wholly remarkable, and the heartbreak it delivers is a heartbreak we all share responsibility for. . . . Sanders has a deft hand and a sensitive approach and avoids the sensational. . . . [He] has given us the tools for a needed conversation, and it is high time that we started it.&#x201D; &#x2014;The Seattle Review of Books
						    	
					    	
						
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        		About the Author
        	
        	
        		
        		
	        		
						
			        		Eli Sanders is the associate editor of Seattle&#x2019;s weekly newspaper The Stranger. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2012 for his reporting on the murder of Teresa Butz. His work has appeared in The&#xA0;New York Times, The Seattle Times, The American Prospect, and Salon, among other publications. Sanders lives in Seattle.
						    	
					    	
						
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## Images

![While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/519N79L%2B50L.jpg)
![While the City Slept: A Love Lost to Violence and a Young Man's Descent into Madness - Image 2](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/31sfmztfHWL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is not an easy book to read
        
*by D***N on June 23, 2016*

This is not an easy book to read, but I read it and kept reading. With insight and great compassion, Sanders shows how a young man in desperate need of mental health treatment fell through the cracks over and over. The result was a horrific crime--so horrific that Sanders leaves much of the survivor's testimony unreported.This is a book about how two womens' love for one another. It's about the civic neglect in the South Park neighborhood where they lived. It's a thorough and compelling account about the culprit's slide into madness. Most of all it's a plea to all of us to work to make the mental health system fuctional.
  

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A sad story, well told
        
*by M***H on November 5, 2017*

I live in the area and remember the crime well. It was just so disgusting that two people trying to get on with their lives were deprived of the future they were planning. Isaiah sure comes across as mentally ill. And as someone who has the wherewithal to know what he chose to do was a crime.I have so much sympathy for his family too. On top of the family dysfunction, having to deal with the mental illness and violence. And they lost family too. I hope the survivors, which also includes family on both sides, have a good life.Sad story.  The writing is good, kept me reading, even though so demoralizing. I recommend the book highly.
  

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ This is an important read as a wake up call ...
        
*by C***N on June 4, 2016*

This is an important read as a wake up call for everyone. Too complacent too long about mental health issues. Our mental health system is broken. Young people with mental health issues are being missed in record numbers until these people have committed  crimes against other people or committed suicide. They often end their lives in prison after a serious crime because they were missed as young people. This is especially true in the community of people who are lacking in insurance and the money is not available to treat them. John Kennedy vowed as President to go to the moon and to fix the mental health system. Getting to the moon was accomplished and the rest..............................
  

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*Product available on Desertcart Senegal*
*Store origin: SN*
*Last updated: 2026-02-10*