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More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories
Instant Amazon Best Seller A reporter uncovers the rest of the story In More After the Break , Jen Maxfield revisits ten memorable stories from her career as a TV news reporter, describing in heart-pounding detail how the events unfolded and revealing what happened after the cameras went away. She introduces readers to unforgettable people who will inspire you with their hopefulness, even when confronting life's greatest a young man who lost both legs in a ferry crash, an endurance athlete with stage-four lung cancer, a fifth grader on a doomed field trip, an Ivy League undergrad sentenced to decades in prison, a young woman who gave her life for an animal, a Wall Street executive on an ill-fated bike ride, a preschooler whose health hinged on an immigration battle, a family who lost everything in a hurricane, a mother who fought back against domestic violence, and a man who stood up for his rights while seated in his wheelchair. Returning to find these people years ― even decades ― after she featured their stories on the news gives Maxfield an opportunity to ask the burning questions she had always What happened after the live truck pulled away? What is the rest of the story?
256 pages, Hardcover
Published July 12, 2022
19 people are currently reading
296 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 151 reviews
July 18, 2022
In More After the Break, television news reporter Jen Maxfield returns to ten of her most memorable stories to revisit and follow-up on what has transpired since she first met them on what is often, she explains, the worst day of their lives. It is a captivating premise for a news book, as the fast pace of local news reporting rarely leaves time for their viewer to fully absorb or understand what the people featured are going through. We also don't get to appreciate the triumphs or witness the unexpected beauty that often follows devastation.
In these stories, compiled during the recent years of the Covid-19 pandemic, Maxfield revisits life-changing devastation and loss, narrowing in on the personal lives affected in such incidents as Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, the Staten Island Ferry crash, the terrorist attack on the bike trail in Manhattan, as well as victims of personal health crises, wrongful convictions and tragic accidents. In her well-researched reporting, she shares the original stories as well as follow-ups from anyone involved who agreed to share their lives with us now. The results are overwhelmingly hopeful and many times inspirational, as those who have had their lives shaped by tragedy often go on to help others in need.
The theme of connection runs through these stories and Maxfield's work as a whole. She discusses the reasons she prefers to knock on doors and follow-up with in person visits, even after the pandemic has made meeting online standard practice. She shows us how she truly cares for the people she speaks to and shares her emotional connections, as well as her methods for keeping enough distance to save her mental health.
Overall, I really enjoyed this up-close view of the life of a local tv news reporter and have come away with more respect for the profession than I had before. I'm also glad I listened to the audiobook narrated by Maxfield herself, who has a wonderful "news voice" and made the stories seem all the more personal. Although I struggle with the role that modern media plays in American society and believe the news has become way too political, I was engaged and filled with admiration as I listened to these amazing, emotional pieces of the lives of everyday people touched by extraordinary events.
Thank you to NetGalley and Green Leaf Book Group Press for the chance to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.
In these stories, compiled during the recent years of the Covid-19 pandemic, Maxfield revisits life-changing devastation and loss, narrowing in on the personal lives affected in such incidents as Hurricane Katrina and Sandy, the Staten Island Ferry crash, the terrorist attack on the bike trail in Manhattan, as well as victims of personal health crises, wrongful convictions and tragic accidents. In her well-researched reporting, she shares the original stories as well as follow-ups from anyone involved who agreed to share their lives with us now. The results are overwhelmingly hopeful and many times inspirational, as those who have had their lives shaped by tragedy often go on to help others in need.
The theme of connection runs through these stories and Maxfield's work as a whole. She discusses the reasons she prefers to knock on doors and follow-up with in person visits, even after the pandemic has made meeting online standard practice. She shows us how she truly cares for the people she speaks to and shares her emotional connections, as well as her methods for keeping enough distance to save her mental health.
Overall, I really enjoyed this up-close view of the life of a local tv news reporter and have come away with more respect for the profession than I had before. I'm also glad I listened to the audiobook narrated by Maxfield herself, who has a wonderful "news voice" and made the stories seem all the more personal. Although I struggle with the role that modern media plays in American society and believe the news has become way too political, I was engaged and filled with admiration as I listened to these amazing, emotional pieces of the lives of everyday people touched by extraordinary events.
Thank you to NetGalley and Green Leaf Book Group Press for the chance to listen to this audiobook in exchange for my honest review.
July 3, 2022
News is the first draft of history.
I’m obsessed with the news so this immediately caught my eye! The name was clever too. This is a collection of meaningful stories from Jen Maxfield’s career as a reporter for a NBC local affiliate in NJ and the NY area.
It’s amazing to see the impact that local journalists have on their communities. Especially right now, with trust in the media at an all time low. When stories are slanted one way or another on whichever national channel you choose, it’s nice, and also refreshing, to be reminded there are still real journalists out there chasing the stories that people need to hear.
I always wonder what happens to people after the news cycle ends. I’m nosy but it’s just because I care. I Google them sometimes hoping to see that they’re doing well so I think this was a fantastic idea! I hadn’t heard about many of these local crimes so it was mostly all new information to me, but even if I had heard of the stories, it’s different hearing it from her perspective. It’s heartbreaking to hear so I can’t imagine how it feels to bear witness to it regularly.
I think this was really informative, enlightening, and also brave because she was so honest. People don’t always view journalists in the best light when they’re chasing the story in the heat of the moment and it doesn’t always sound great to say out-loud what you’ve done to get a quote or to consider whether or not you made things easier or more difficult for the family or victims. It can be a double-edged sword and I think this reporter has a great balance and a lot of self-awareness. If you like the story behind the story, this might be for you!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the audiobook to review. I devoured it!
I’m obsessed with the news so this immediately caught my eye! The name was clever too. This is a collection of meaningful stories from Jen Maxfield’s career as a reporter for a NBC local affiliate in NJ and the NY area.
It’s amazing to see the impact that local journalists have on their communities. Especially right now, with trust in the media at an all time low. When stories are slanted one way or another on whichever national channel you choose, it’s nice, and also refreshing, to be reminded there are still real journalists out there chasing the stories that people need to hear.
I always wonder what happens to people after the news cycle ends. I’m nosy but it’s just because I care. I Google them sometimes hoping to see that they’re doing well so I think this was a fantastic idea! I hadn’t heard about many of these local crimes so it was mostly all new information to me, but even if I had heard of the stories, it’s different hearing it from her perspective. It’s heartbreaking to hear so I can’t imagine how it feels to bear witness to it regularly.
I think this was really informative, enlightening, and also brave because she was so honest. People don’t always view journalists in the best light when they’re chasing the story in the heat of the moment and it doesn’t always sound great to say out-loud what you’ve done to get a quote or to consider whether or not you made things easier or more difficult for the family or victims. It can be a double-edged sword and I think this reporter has a great balance and a lot of self-awareness. If you like the story behind the story, this might be for you!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the audiobook to review. I devoured it!
July 30, 2023
Jen narrates this and recounts notable news story and, in most cases, a current follow-up on the people involved in each story. Since most stories took place in the NY/NJ area I remember them well. I am not a huge fan of the news and so much of this was sad and hard to relive but it’s done very well. I do wish there was more personal accounts of Jen Maxfield herself so I could have felt a bigger connection to her and her job.
Recommended For: Those interested in more from a news story from the reporter who told it.
Recommended For: Those interested in more from a news story from the reporter who told it.
July 6, 2022
Fascinating book and extremely well-written!
March 23, 2022
Upping to 3.5 stars.
Thank you to Greenleaf publisher and the author for this ARC.
What a refreshing change from the usual types of memoirs I've read. She is a local reporter from New York and she covered a lot of stories from New Jersey where she lives. She focused on ordinary/every day people. Years later, she went back to these people to follow-up. Some were success stories and some were with the families of people who unfortunately are gone because of their death. Some didn't even want to talk to her which is understandable due to the circumstances.
I cried while reading some of these stories and not just from sadness but also from happiness because of where they are now or because of what some of the families are doing to help keep their children's memory alive by doing good deeds.
Thank you to Greenleaf publisher and the author for this ARC.
What a refreshing change from the usual types of memoirs I've read. She is a local reporter from New York and she covered a lot of stories from New Jersey where she lives. She focused on ordinary/every day people. Years later, she went back to these people to follow-up. Some were success stories and some were with the families of people who unfortunately are gone because of their death. Some didn't even want to talk to her which is understandable due to the circumstances.
I cried while reading some of these stories and not just from sadness but also from happiness because of where they are now or because of what some of the families are doing to help keep their children's memory alive by doing good deeds.
July 18, 2022
Thank you NetGalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks for accepting my request to read and review More After the Break.
After reading the synopsis, I tried to imagine what types of stories would she check on, and to my surprise people were willing to speak to her much later. The stories are primarily human interest, and on the original airing they garnered public sensibilities. News casters have always left a bad taste in my mouth. Press conferences and the ridiculous questions screamed, after being told -- ongoing investigation.
Mayfield briefly mentions knocking on an accident victims' family door hoping they didn't answer. She goes on to say she stayed, knocked and continued to knock for many many years. The stories selected tug at heart strings. Families relive their worst days to answer her questions again.
This is written as one story per chapter, giving time for the good, bad, and ugly time to resonate. The book itself was just okay. The fact that I could read one story at a time made it doable. I am not likely to forget the human elements.
The author narrated herself.
After reading the synopsis, I tried to imagine what types of stories would she check on, and to my surprise people were willing to speak to her much later. The stories are primarily human interest, and on the original airing they garnered public sensibilities. News casters have always left a bad taste in my mouth. Press conferences and the ridiculous questions screamed, after being told -- ongoing investigation.
Mayfield briefly mentions knocking on an accident victims' family door hoping they didn't answer. She goes on to say she stayed, knocked and continued to knock for many many years. The stories selected tug at heart strings. Families relive their worst days to answer her questions again.
This is written as one story per chapter, giving time for the good, bad, and ugly time to resonate. The book itself was just okay. The fact that I could read one story at a time made it doable. I am not likely to forget the human elements.
The author narrated herself.
July 20, 2022
Sincere thank you to NetGalley, Greenleaf Book Group, and Jen Maxfield for the ARC of “More After the Break.”
The diverse and unique stories told in this novel were raw and emotional. The authors writing style kept me engaged and made it incredibly difficult to put the book down.
I absolutely loved the authors ability to self-reflect and share how her interactions impact herself as an individual and news reporter, how it impacts the viewers and how it impacts the prime subjects of the stories told. Although I feel that journalism and the role of the media in general can be quite controversial at times, it was evident to me that sharing stories promotes a sense of connection and deepening community bonds, through the good and the inevitable.
Highly recommend this book. 4.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 5.
The diverse and unique stories told in this novel were raw and emotional. The authors writing style kept me engaged and made it incredibly difficult to put the book down.
I absolutely loved the authors ability to self-reflect and share how her interactions impact herself as an individual and news reporter, how it impacts the viewers and how it impacts the prime subjects of the stories told. Although I feel that journalism and the role of the media in general can be quite controversial at times, it was evident to me that sharing stories promotes a sense of connection and deepening community bonds, through the good and the inevitable.
Highly recommend this book. 4.5 ⭐️ rounded up to 5.
September 9, 2022
Very interesting idea to go back and find out what happened after the "story" ended. Each chapter is a different story this author reported on over the years, a story that she held in her heart, wondering what happened to the people afterward.
The stories are varied, some with much happier endings than others, and it was a good insight into the life of a reporter... the hours, the struggles, the horrific things they have to cover, and how those events affect them.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me this audiobook that is a good reminder of how everyone we hear about in the news is human, has loved ones who care about them, and their story is never over after the camera is turned off.
The stories are varied, some with much happier endings than others, and it was a good insight into the life of a reporter... the hours, the struggles, the horrific things they have to cover, and how those events affect them.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me this audiobook that is a good reminder of how everyone we hear about in the news is human, has loved ones who care about them, and their story is never over after the camera is turned off.
March 2, 2026
This was a really cool project. The follow up to see where people from stories she covered over the years ended up. The author brought the humanity of the subjects of news stories into sharp focus and made me feel invested in how their stories played out. She brought empathy to the news which is a pretty rare thing. Thanks to the publisher for sending me an advanced listening copy. The audio was really engaging.
November 10, 2022
"An instant Amazon bestseller the day it was announced for preorders, More After the Break takes readers on a dramatic ride-along in the TV news live truck. Based on her two-decade career as a New York City news reporter, Jen Maxfield writes about everything from the moment she gets the call to head to breaking news, to arriving at chaotic scenes, to knocking on doors of families who are grieving the loss of a loved one."
I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy of the audiobook version of More After The Break from NetGalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks. The fact that it is not only written by Jen Maxfield, but also narrated by her made the experience of listening an intimate one.
Somehow Jen Maxfield is able to narrate the book as if she is having a one on one conversation with the listener. This is a skill I have not come across while listening to audiobooks in the past, but one I very much enjoyed.
I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy of the audiobook version of More After The Break from NetGalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks. The fact that it is not only written by Jen Maxfield, but also narrated by her made the experience of listening an intimate one.
The updates to news stories Jen Maxfield covered in the past made for fascinating and absolutely riveting reading/listening.
Jen has single-handedly changed my preconceived notions of what reporters are like. I had thought that reporters were all jaded and were somehow able to block the normal emotional reactions to tragedy, crime, etc. Now I know better. Jen feels every emotion deeply, so much so that even many years later, she is able to authenticly tap into those emotions and to convey them to her readers/listeners.
The fact that she is both author and narrator, means that she knows exactly what phrases and/or words to emphasize. This makes a huge, positive impact on the reader/listener.
I rate the audiobook version of MORE AFTER THE BREAK as a solid 5 out of 5 Stars.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
I very much hope that she will write a second volume of news story follow up. I am following her on Goodreads so that I will find out immediately if she writes another book.
*** Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook. ***
I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy of the audiobook version of More After The Break from NetGalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks. The fact that it is not only written by Jen Maxfield, but also narrated by her made the experience of listening an intimate one.
Somehow Jen Maxfield is able to narrate the book as if she is having a one on one conversation with the listener. This is a skill I have not come across while listening to audiobooks in the past, but one I very much enjoyed.
I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy of the audiobook version of More After The Break from NetGalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks. The fact that it is not only written by Jen Maxfield, but also narrated by her made the experience of listening an intimate one.
The updates to news stories Jen Maxfield covered in the past made for fascinating and absolutely riveting reading/listening.
Jen has single-handedly changed my preconceived notions of what reporters are like. I had thought that reporters were all jaded and were somehow able to block the normal emotional reactions to tragedy, crime, etc. Now I know better. Jen feels every emotion deeply, so much so that even many years later, she is able to authenticly tap into those emotions and to convey them to her readers/listeners.
The fact that she is both author and narrator, means that she knows exactly what phrases and/or words to emphasize. This makes a huge, positive impact on the reader/listener.
I rate the audiobook version of MORE AFTER THE BREAK as a solid 5 out of 5 Stars.
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
I very much hope that she will write a second volume of news story follow up. I am following her on Goodreads so that I will find out immediately if she writes another book.
*** Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this audiobook. ***
July 25, 2022
This book caught my eye immediately. Despite not really being a non fiction reader as per say I am someone who loves real life stories, crimes, podcasts etc. I was excited to read the accounts of 'what happened next' after the cameras stop filming . Returning to families/victims years after, gives us an emotional look into how these people continue on after live changing events.
The book was a refreshing change of pace from books I usually read , each story is given its own chapter and is well laid out. It was amazing to be given a look into cases Ive never heard , or which may other wise have stayed as local stories.
These stories made me feel so many emotions for the people, in some cases there was happiness and others heartbreak , I feel like the author did a could job of conveying these emotions to us. The book itself was very honest , and gives us a look into how journalism is a lot more complicated then we expect it to be, and also the effect it had on her life as well as the families and victims of the stories shes telling. The mentions of her feeling as if shes intruding on peoples lives or having the doors slammed in her face , is very eye opening to the reader.
Reading this book definitely made me feel more open to reading books similar to it in the future , and I would recommend it to anyone !
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the ARC to read in exchange for an honest review!
The book was a refreshing change of pace from books I usually read , each story is given its own chapter and is well laid out. It was amazing to be given a look into cases Ive never heard , or which may other wise have stayed as local stories.
These stories made me feel so many emotions for the people, in some cases there was happiness and others heartbreak , I feel like the author did a could job of conveying these emotions to us. The book itself was very honest , and gives us a look into how journalism is a lot more complicated then we expect it to be, and also the effect it had on her life as well as the families and victims of the stories shes telling. The mentions of her feeling as if shes intruding on peoples lives or having the doors slammed in her face , is very eye opening to the reader.
Reading this book definitely made me feel more open to reading books similar to it in the future , and I would recommend it to anyone !
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the ARC to read in exchange for an honest review!
April 12, 2023
If you've ever seen a news segment and thought- I wonder whatever happened to that person/with that story- than this book is for you.
In every chapter Maxfield goes back to a news story that she covered in the past, and talks to the people involved to find out what happened after the initial news coverage.
This is a broad-ranging collection of stories-only connected by the fact that Maxfield first reported on them and was curious enough to double back and tell the fuller story.
The writing is empathetic and engaging. In this 24 hour news cycle where in, this is an antidote of sorts.
It's a great read for non-fiction fans that enjoy discreet chapters rather than a book on one topic or subject.
Thank you to Netgalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
In every chapter Maxfield goes back to a news story that she covered in the past, and talks to the people involved to find out what happened after the initial news coverage.
This is a broad-ranging collection of stories-only connected by the fact that Maxfield first reported on them and was curious enough to double back and tell the fuller story.
The writing is empathetic and engaging. In this 24 hour news cycle where in, this is an antidote of sorts.
It's a great read for non-fiction fans that enjoy discreet chapters rather than a book on one topic or subject.
Thank you to Netgalley and Greenleaf Audiobooks for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.
July 9, 2022
Jen Maxfield has had long tenure in the journalism world covering stories at the local news station. In More After the Break, she revisits ten unforgettable stories from her career as a TV news reporter.
Maxfield really unfolded each story in depth without making the recounts overly long winded. I think coming from a 90 second sound bite world really helped tell the stories efficiently without making them boring. Maxfield did a great job recounting the events and setting the stage for each story. Every story written has its own set of emotion. Some of the events she wrote about truly pull at your heart strings.
Overall, this would be a great book for anyone that is interested in the behind the scenes of broadcast journalism. I was uncertain if I would be able to enjoy the book, because I did not know what to expect. I finished pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book to review. All opinions are my own.
Maxfield really unfolded each story in depth without making the recounts overly long winded. I think coming from a 90 second sound bite world really helped tell the stories efficiently without making them boring. Maxfield did a great job recounting the events and setting the stage for each story. Every story written has its own set of emotion. Some of the events she wrote about truly pull at your heart strings.
Overall, this would be a great book for anyone that is interested in the behind the scenes of broadcast journalism. I was uncertain if I would be able to enjoy the book, because I did not know what to expect. I finished pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of the book to review. All opinions are my own.
December 20, 2023
I thought this would be an interesting listen while cleaning around the house and I was curious to learn how people faired years later after their stories were aired. Although this was well written and I appreciated the recap before the "after", it just wasn't for me. It had interesting stories that I enjoyed listening to but honestly, the newscaster voice turned me off listening to it for hours. If she would have spoken in a regular voice I think I would have liked it much better.
January 16, 2023
I listened to the audiobook of this which I loved because it was narrated by the author who obviously has a voice for the media. I found it interesting hearing her side of the stories as I remember growing up seeing these airing on television as I’m from the area that she broadcasted. I love how she revisited the stories instead of just recounting the past. Great quick read. Thank you NetGalley for this one!
January 20, 2023
The author has been a news reporter for twenty-two years and has covered thousands of compelling stories, interviewing families moments after tragedies have altered their lives. In this book, she writes about the ten most memorable stories from her career. Stories where she always wanted to know: What was the rest of the story? She gives the reader a behind-the-scenes look at the discipline and commitment it takes to be a journalist.
The author used beautiful emotion to draw me in, whether it was a story about Katrina, the Staten Island Ferry, or the terrorist attack on the West Side Highway. Part of this book speaks to the randomness of life and what people have to go through. At the core, it's also about how people survive and triumph after experiencing adversity. The author also wants to raise awareness and funds to help the less fortunate.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...
The author used beautiful emotion to draw me in, whether it was a story about Katrina, the Staten Island Ferry, or the terrorist attack on the West Side Highway. Part of this book speaks to the randomness of life and what people have to go through. At the core, it's also about how people survive and triumph after experiencing adversity. The author also wants to raise awareness and funds to help the less fortunate.
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://www.momsdonthavetimetoreadboo...
July 25, 2022
What happens to traumatized people years after their catastrophic stories were reported on TV news? (NJ/NYC beat & New Orleans; 2000 to 2021): More After The Break reads like a riveting and emotionally stirring collection of short stories. Except these stories are so real you wish they were fiction.
Of the “ten thousand” people Emmy-award winning journalist Jen Maxfield interviewed for TV, chosen from “four thousand stories” spanning twenty-two years, ten are revisited in this compassionate, groundbreaking book. Each breathtaking, and delicate in reaching out to people she’d been thrown-together with amidst horrific circumstances.
How many reporters dare to re-open doors not knowing what “chaos and sadness” they might be stepping back into? “We dip our toes in the pool of your grief but never jump in for fear of drowning.”
Maxfield’s commitment to the highest ideals of journalism shines, so it’s not surprising she now teaches broadcast journalism at her alma mater, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Keenly aware the afflicted person at the center of the story always comes first, despite the rush to get the story, the author’s warmth, honesty, respectfulness, and graciousness offers comfort to the darkness. Humbly though, she asks: “What can I offer”? Answering with, “The space to tell their story.”
Tracking down people met in crisis years ago is the easy part thanks to technology she says, but there’s nothing easy about these stories. The reward, which the reader perceives, is that she “could not have predicted how much these reunions would enrich my life with joy and optimism.”
Maxfield’s gratitude is also refreshing. Grateful for the extraordinary “emotional intimacy within minutes” granted whenever interviewing/intruding on someone in his/her most vulnerable, naked state; the cameramen (no female photographers in these stories) who stood beside her so she never felt “alone”; and being cocooned in the “live truck” with her crew preparing to transition from reality into the surreal.
How does a journalist find balance in their life stepping outside their world to the unknown abyss? For Maxfield that means getting the urgent call, having to drop everything to race out the door, leaving her family – husband and three children, young during her coverage of these stories – to be consumed by nightmare stories working up to sixteen hours a day. These ten stories are staggering in terms of human trauma, which makes the idea for and realization of this book high-stakes and notable.
More After The Break comes at a crucial time when the public’s trust in the media has reached alarmingly low rates. If only wide readership of this book could reverse the trend, by witnessing serious journalists/reporters/anchors do their upmost to maintain the principles and ethics of the Fourth Estate.
Maxfield wonders whether the people she contacts will even remember her. Although trauma can wipe out memories, we understand why no one forgets the genuinely empathetic newswoman.
Having cut her teeth at two local upstate New York TV stations, Maxfield worked at Eyewitness News on ABC7 New York for ten years; since 2013 she’s covered the news for NBC4New York. Her real start she describes came in graduate school, making a documentary for her thesis. This story saved for the last, perhaps to sum up two decades worth of lessons learned.
Bergen County, New Jersey is the author’s home. So while she covers local and NYC news stories, one is included reliving being called upon to cover Hurricane Katrina a day after it devastated Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Twenty-eight at the time, it was the most “high profiled” and “massive” story of her career. It shatters any notions you might have that TV news reporting during catastrophes is to be envied. Lives are reduced to the absolute minimum of basic needs – drinking water, coffee, bathrooms, and gas for the vehicle. Still, enviable compared to the disaster.
Perhaps another journalist could have written this book as beautifully. But not with the same sensitive and compassionate prose reflecting Maxfield’s laudatory approach to her profession.
We don’t know the people in these stories. Nor the disasters that hit them, with the exception of Hurricane Katrina and perhaps the “60,000-pound ferry” that crashed into a Staten Island pier. “Angel on the Ferry” opens the collection, maybe because it’s the most awe-inspiring, though there’s plenty of competition. The victim interviewed was twenty-four at the time, a NYC waiter who didn’t earn much money on his way home. Also interviewed was the heroine nurse who saved his life, opportunely vacationing from Wales. Could Maxfield have been as courageous? she reflects. It does take a different type of courage to re-enter Paul Esposito’s life, not knowing what kind of physical and mental condition she’d find him in after losing both of his legs. His words and mental attitude, like the book’s title, are unforgettable. “The ferry crash was the start of a new chapter” he says, in which he “takes nothing for granted and savors the beauty of every day.” Is this the definition of Grace?
“A Daughter’s Love” is a survival story on two fronts that will take your breath away. How did Tamika Tompkins, a twenty-four-year-old mother of two, one a newborn, survive being stabbed twenty-seven-times (!) by her ex-boyfriend? Wait, there’s more! How did her two-year-old daughter have the wherewithal to jump on top of her bleeding mother stopping her from bleeding to death? Stunning what even the very youngest of children are capable of. A stark warning that adults need to pay closer attention to what they say and how they behave in front of their impressionable kids who hear and observe far more than they’re given credit for.
The “Friday Night” story about a twenty-three-year-old animal lover Tiffany is achingly sad. Her life cut short by an intoxicated hit-and-run driver while she was trying to save a dog lying in the street also hit by a car. Sadness turns to outrage when we learn how just justice is. If the perpetrator had moral convictions – stayed at the scene of the crime as legally required – a jury would likely have found him drunk and guilty, imprisoned for maybe as much as twenty years (NJ law). But who can prove how much alcohol is in your system when you’ve run away? Seven years in jail for erasing a life is an indignation, but what do you call getting out of prison on parole in six months?
Obviously, there’s more stories in this moving collection. Each strike at the randomness and fairness of life. And, how some people do care deeply about that.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
Of the “ten thousand” people Emmy-award winning journalist Jen Maxfield interviewed for TV, chosen from “four thousand stories” spanning twenty-two years, ten are revisited in this compassionate, groundbreaking book. Each breathtaking, and delicate in reaching out to people she’d been thrown-together with amidst horrific circumstances.
How many reporters dare to re-open doors not knowing what “chaos and sadness” they might be stepping back into? “We dip our toes in the pool of your grief but never jump in for fear of drowning.”
Maxfield’s commitment to the highest ideals of journalism shines, so it’s not surprising she now teaches broadcast journalism at her alma mater, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Keenly aware the afflicted person at the center of the story always comes first, despite the rush to get the story, the author’s warmth, honesty, respectfulness, and graciousness offers comfort to the darkness. Humbly though, she asks: “What can I offer”? Answering with, “The space to tell their story.”
Tracking down people met in crisis years ago is the easy part thanks to technology she says, but there’s nothing easy about these stories. The reward, which the reader perceives, is that she “could not have predicted how much these reunions would enrich my life with joy and optimism.”
Maxfield’s gratitude is also refreshing. Grateful for the extraordinary “emotional intimacy within minutes” granted whenever interviewing/intruding on someone in his/her most vulnerable, naked state; the cameramen (no female photographers in these stories) who stood beside her so she never felt “alone”; and being cocooned in the “live truck” with her crew preparing to transition from reality into the surreal.
How does a journalist find balance in their life stepping outside their world to the unknown abyss? For Maxfield that means getting the urgent call, having to drop everything to race out the door, leaving her family – husband and three children, young during her coverage of these stories – to be consumed by nightmare stories working up to sixteen hours a day. These ten stories are staggering in terms of human trauma, which makes the idea for and realization of this book high-stakes and notable.
More After The Break comes at a crucial time when the public’s trust in the media has reached alarmingly low rates. If only wide readership of this book could reverse the trend, by witnessing serious journalists/reporters/anchors do their upmost to maintain the principles and ethics of the Fourth Estate.
Maxfield wonders whether the people she contacts will even remember her. Although trauma can wipe out memories, we understand why no one forgets the genuinely empathetic newswoman.
Having cut her teeth at two local upstate New York TV stations, Maxfield worked at Eyewitness News on ABC7 New York for ten years; since 2013 she’s covered the news for NBC4New York. Her real start she describes came in graduate school, making a documentary for her thesis. This story saved for the last, perhaps to sum up two decades worth of lessons learned.
Bergen County, New Jersey is the author’s home. So while she covers local and NYC news stories, one is included reliving being called upon to cover Hurricane Katrina a day after it devastated Louisiana and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Twenty-eight at the time, it was the most “high profiled” and “massive” story of her career. It shatters any notions you might have that TV news reporting during catastrophes is to be envied. Lives are reduced to the absolute minimum of basic needs – drinking water, coffee, bathrooms, and gas for the vehicle. Still, enviable compared to the disaster.
“TV news reporting is not a glamourous job, but its purpose is lofty. Spotlighting the people who represent the best in human nature helps our viewers see beyond the despair of the situation, and it gives us all hope.”
Perhaps another journalist could have written this book as beautifully. But not with the same sensitive and compassionate prose reflecting Maxfield’s laudatory approach to her profession.
We don’t know the people in these stories. Nor the disasters that hit them, with the exception of Hurricane Katrina and perhaps the “60,000-pound ferry” that crashed into a Staten Island pier. “Angel on the Ferry” opens the collection, maybe because it’s the most awe-inspiring, though there’s plenty of competition. The victim interviewed was twenty-four at the time, a NYC waiter who didn’t earn much money on his way home. Also interviewed was the heroine nurse who saved his life, opportunely vacationing from Wales. Could Maxfield have been as courageous? she reflects. It does take a different type of courage to re-enter Paul Esposito’s life, not knowing what kind of physical and mental condition she’d find him in after losing both of his legs. His words and mental attitude, like the book’s title, are unforgettable. “The ferry crash was the start of a new chapter” he says, in which he “takes nothing for granted and savors the beauty of every day.” Is this the definition of Grace?
“A Daughter’s Love” is a survival story on two fronts that will take your breath away. How did Tamika Tompkins, a twenty-four-year-old mother of two, one a newborn, survive being stabbed twenty-seven-times (!) by her ex-boyfriend? Wait, there’s more! How did her two-year-old daughter have the wherewithal to jump on top of her bleeding mother stopping her from bleeding to death? Stunning what even the very youngest of children are capable of. A stark warning that adults need to pay closer attention to what they say and how they behave in front of their impressionable kids who hear and observe far more than they’re given credit for.
The “Friday Night” story about a twenty-three-year-old animal lover Tiffany is achingly sad. Her life cut short by an intoxicated hit-and-run driver while she was trying to save a dog lying in the street also hit by a car. Sadness turns to outrage when we learn how just justice is. If the perpetrator had moral convictions – stayed at the scene of the crime as legally required – a jury would likely have found him drunk and guilty, imprisoned for maybe as much as twenty years (NJ law). But who can prove how much alcohol is in your system when you’ve run away? Seven years in jail for erasing a life is an indignation, but what do you call getting out of prison on parole in six months?
Obviously, there’s more stories in this moving collection. Each strike at the randomness and fairness of life. And, how some people do care deeply about that.
Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)
September 2, 2022
I had higher hopes for this book, written by a television news journalist, in which she follows up on ten stories she had covered previously in her career that have stayed with her years later.
She recounted the circumstances of each of the stories in good detail, but the actual follow up seemed pretty sparse. I thought following up with the people she interviewed was the whole point of the book?
It also read more like a book of short stories, which I generally tend to avoid, because I feel like there isn’t enough time to get really invested in the stories or people.
I was glad, though, that the author at least mentioned feeling bad for intruding on people, on what is arguably the worst day of their lives, just to get a scoop. I know news has to be reported, but some of the situations she described, where she’s showing up on the doorsteps of families who’ve just suffered the unimaginable, definitely seemed gross.
Thanks to #netgalley and #greenleafbookgroup for this #arc of #moreafterthebreak in exchange for an honest review.
She recounted the circumstances of each of the stories in good detail, but the actual follow up seemed pretty sparse. I thought following up with the people she interviewed was the whole point of the book?
It also read more like a book of short stories, which I generally tend to avoid, because I feel like there isn’t enough time to get really invested in the stories or people.
I was glad, though, that the author at least mentioned feeling bad for intruding on people, on what is arguably the worst day of their lives, just to get a scoop. I know news has to be reported, but some of the situations she described, where she’s showing up on the doorsteps of families who’ve just suffered the unimaginable, definitely seemed gross.
Thanks to #netgalley and #greenleafbookgroup for this #arc of #moreafterthebreak in exchange for an honest review.
November 13, 2024
Thank you to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest rating and review.
I absolutely loved this book! As somebody who worked a very brief stint in news reporting over a decade ago, I still often think about the people I interviewed and wonder what happened to them after the interview. This book was a great concept with excellent execution. The audiobook added another layer that I enjoyed and that was being able to hear the narrator talk of her memories in her own voice. Most of the stories in this book I don’t remember hearing about even when they initially occurred, but the author did a great job of summarizing the initial news event before going into the “where are they now” portion. I also really respect the author’s transparency in telling these stories, even when they do not show her (and her industry) in the most flattering of ways! Very well done!
I absolutely loved this book! As somebody who worked a very brief stint in news reporting over a decade ago, I still often think about the people I interviewed and wonder what happened to them after the interview. This book was a great concept with excellent execution. The audiobook added another layer that I enjoyed and that was being able to hear the narrator talk of her memories in her own voice. Most of the stories in this book I don’t remember hearing about even when they initially occurred, but the author did a great job of summarizing the initial news event before going into the “where are they now” portion. I also really respect the author’s transparency in telling these stories, even when they do not show her (and her industry) in the most flattering of ways! Very well done!
September 7, 2022
Jen Maxfield defies the stereotype of TV news journalists as story hungry predators who trample uncaring over the most intimate details of people’s lives in their feverish pursuit to be first with the soundbite. In her recently published first book “More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories” it’s obvious she is that rarity, a compassionate and sensitive reporter committed to the highest principles of journalism. In her own words, her mantra is “you’re a human being first and a journalist second”.
In the book Maxfield looks back at ten of the most sensational stories she’s covered in the course of her twenty-year TV news reporting career. What motivated her, she says, is that once the high drama of the unfolding catastrophes and their immediate aftermaths had died down, the stories and the individuals involved haunted her, to the extent she kept wondering what had happened to those people after “the live truck pulled away”. It’s a testament to her humanity that she wrote this book to pay tribute to the heroism, dignity and courage of bereaved families, accident victims and others suddenly wrenched from normality into nightmare, by revisiting these stories, often decades later, when their names had faded from everyone’s memories but hers. What, she wondered, was the rest of the story?
TV news reporting is a profession that from the outside looks impossibly glamorous. Maxfield disabuses us of this notion in no uncertain terms. Her description of a typical day on the job is a frank revelation about what goes on behind the scenes in news reporting. It’s clearly not a workplace for the weak of heart. Unpredictability, urgency, improvisation, impossible deadlines and split second-decision making are non-negotiables. As she describes it, “every day in local news is a fresh challenge, a journey into the unknown. We show up to work not knowing where we will go or who we will meet.” One of the excruciating demands, she explains, is the need to approach someone with a microphone on what was often the worst day of their life. “These people”, she explains “invited me into their homes, into their living-rooms because they trusted me. They trusted me to get their story out into the community”.
Witnessing human misfortune up close, she says, changes those who hold the microphones and the cameras as much as it does the victims and she’s concerned that this is an aspect of journalism that is too often overlooked. The events she reports are harrowing but narrated so vividly that the reader (or listener) is riveted. It’s easy to see why Maxfield is an Emmy Award winning reporter as well as an adjunct professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Characters featured in the book include a survivor of the Staten Island Ferry Crash who lost both legs, an endurance athlete with stage-four lung cancer, a ten-year old injured in a horrific bus crash while on a school trip, families who lost everything in Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, a young man killed in a terrorist attack while riding his bike in Manhattan and (for me the saddest) a twenty-three year old struck and killed by a drunk driver while helping a dog injured and left for dead in the middle of the road. She acknowledges the extraordinary generosity of people in suffering to speak to her both at the time of the events and later. “Telling stories with care opens up avenues for the families to heal … it allows other people to help and encourages them to support their neighbours”.
As a reporter and anchor for NBC New York since 2013 and with a ten-year background as a reporter with Eyewitness News, Maxfield is eminently well qualified to understand the industry. In her capacity as a local TV news reporter, she estimates she’s interviewed at least ten thousand people on camera for the thousands of news stories she’s filed.
She doesn’t shy away from the obvious questions, for example why journalists invade people’s privacy at a time when they’re least able to cope or why don’t reporters covering a natural disaster just get out of the way and let the emergency teams get on with the real work. Her answers provide credible insight in the face of increasingly harsh criticism of a profession that’s often seen to be nothing but exploitation of the weak for the profit of the strong. She hopes, she says, to shed some clarity on the “moral ambiguities” of journalism. What helps sustain her in covering breaking news stories of human trauma where it would be inevitable not to feel at least some part of the suffering of those involved, is that the people she interviews see what they’re doing as “constructing their legacy … that their story will be an integral part of [their] community’s shared history”.
I listened to this as an audiobook which was narrated by the author herself. Her vitality, engagement, warmth and the particularly authoritative character of her voice added much to the enjoyment of the experience. It’s also a great book title, original and catchy.
Neither the book nor the author has a high profile in Australia, clearly because it focuses on TV news reporting in the US, so I was unsure what to expect. It was a brilliant read (or listen) and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to get to understand why the book is receiving such rave reviews. Like other books describing horrific events, it can be confrontational but this one is worth reading if nothing else for the illustrations of people’s ability to not just survive in the wake of adversity, but thrive – examples, as the author says, of the “triumph of the human spirit.”
Thank you to Greenleaf Book Group for providing me with an advance review copy of the audiobook.
In the book Maxfield looks back at ten of the most sensational stories she’s covered in the course of her twenty-year TV news reporting career. What motivated her, she says, is that once the high drama of the unfolding catastrophes and their immediate aftermaths had died down, the stories and the individuals involved haunted her, to the extent she kept wondering what had happened to those people after “the live truck pulled away”. It’s a testament to her humanity that she wrote this book to pay tribute to the heroism, dignity and courage of bereaved families, accident victims and others suddenly wrenched from normality into nightmare, by revisiting these stories, often decades later, when their names had faded from everyone’s memories but hers. What, she wondered, was the rest of the story?
TV news reporting is a profession that from the outside looks impossibly glamorous. Maxfield disabuses us of this notion in no uncertain terms. Her description of a typical day on the job is a frank revelation about what goes on behind the scenes in news reporting. It’s clearly not a workplace for the weak of heart. Unpredictability, urgency, improvisation, impossible deadlines and split second-decision making are non-negotiables. As she describes it, “every day in local news is a fresh challenge, a journey into the unknown. We show up to work not knowing where we will go or who we will meet.” One of the excruciating demands, she explains, is the need to approach someone with a microphone on what was often the worst day of their life. “These people”, she explains “invited me into their homes, into their living-rooms because they trusted me. They trusted me to get their story out into the community”.
Witnessing human misfortune up close, she says, changes those who hold the microphones and the cameras as much as it does the victims and she’s concerned that this is an aspect of journalism that is too often overlooked. The events she reports are harrowing but narrated so vividly that the reader (or listener) is riveted. It’s easy to see why Maxfield is an Emmy Award winning reporter as well as an adjunct professor at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism. Characters featured in the book include a survivor of the Staten Island Ferry Crash who lost both legs, an endurance athlete with stage-four lung cancer, a ten-year old injured in a horrific bus crash while on a school trip, families who lost everything in Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, a young man killed in a terrorist attack while riding his bike in Manhattan and (for me the saddest) a twenty-three year old struck and killed by a drunk driver while helping a dog injured and left for dead in the middle of the road. She acknowledges the extraordinary generosity of people in suffering to speak to her both at the time of the events and later. “Telling stories with care opens up avenues for the families to heal … it allows other people to help and encourages them to support their neighbours”.
As a reporter and anchor for NBC New York since 2013 and with a ten-year background as a reporter with Eyewitness News, Maxfield is eminently well qualified to understand the industry. In her capacity as a local TV news reporter, she estimates she’s interviewed at least ten thousand people on camera for the thousands of news stories she’s filed.
She doesn’t shy away from the obvious questions, for example why journalists invade people’s privacy at a time when they’re least able to cope or why don’t reporters covering a natural disaster just get out of the way and let the emergency teams get on with the real work. Her answers provide credible insight in the face of increasingly harsh criticism of a profession that’s often seen to be nothing but exploitation of the weak for the profit of the strong. She hopes, she says, to shed some clarity on the “moral ambiguities” of journalism. What helps sustain her in covering breaking news stories of human trauma where it would be inevitable not to feel at least some part of the suffering of those involved, is that the people she interviews see what they’re doing as “constructing their legacy … that their story will be an integral part of [their] community’s shared history”.
I listened to this as an audiobook which was narrated by the author herself. Her vitality, engagement, warmth and the particularly authoritative character of her voice added much to the enjoyment of the experience. It’s also a great book title, original and catchy.
Neither the book nor the author has a high profile in Australia, clearly because it focuses on TV news reporting in the US, so I was unsure what to expect. It was a brilliant read (or listen) and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to get to understand why the book is receiving such rave reviews. Like other books describing horrific events, it can be confrontational but this one is worth reading if nothing else for the illustrations of people’s ability to not just survive in the wake of adversity, but thrive – examples, as the author says, of the “triumph of the human spirit.”
Thank you to Greenleaf Book Group for providing me with an advance review copy of the audiobook.
July 11, 2022
For more reviews and bookish posts please visit: https://www.ManOfLaBook.com
More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories by Jen Maxfield is a memoir in which the author goes back to find out what happened to some of the people she covered over the years. Mrs. Maxfield is an award-winning TV reporter for the NY, NJ, CT markets, an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and a lecturer.
My friend Mark, a Tony-winning TV cameraman, which I used to work out with, has told me that the saying in network news is “if it can bleed, it can die”. Since then, I have heard from other people about the nastiness of the industry.
During COVID, Mrs. Maxfield started looking up what happened to some of the people she interviewed who touched her. This curiosity prompted this book. I remember that many years ago, so many I forgot when the folks who work in Israeli TV went on strike. This was when there was only one channel. The talent went on the road for speaking engagement, telling behind-the-scenes stories, making jokes, conversations, and more. Those were wonderful events, and this book reminded me of them.
Living in Northern New Jersey for much of my life, I certainly have seen Mrs. Maxfield on TV. Like the people you meet in your high school reunion, some of the stories she wrote about are very familiar, others vaguely, and others I have no recollection of.
In her book, More After the Break TV reporter Jen Maxfield counters those claims but does admit it’s a difficult profession to be in. The author follows up on a few of the many stories she covered over the years, in more detail than a few seconds on TV.
What surprised me about this book, is the honesty, as well as openness with which the author writes. For a short book, about various subjects, each one with its own history, it’s surprisingly candid. Mrs. Maxfield is honest about her feelings as an intruder in people’s most difficult times. The death of a child or a loved one, funerals, horrific accidents, and more. Even though she makes sure to tell the audience she tries to be sensitive and not shove camera or microphone in people’s faces, it still takes a tremendous about of chutzpah to knock on someone’s door and beg for an interview, the day their child died.
I don’t know if Mrs. Maxfield wrote this book as part of a speaking campaign, or just out of curiosity about her old stories during COVID, as she mentioned. Either way, it’s a very enjoyable, open, personal, and sometimes tear-jerking book well worth reading.
More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories by Jen Maxfield is a memoir in which the author goes back to find out what happened to some of the people she covered over the years. Mrs. Maxfield is an award-winning TV reporter for the NY, NJ, CT markets, an adjunct professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, and a lecturer.
My friend Mark, a Tony-winning TV cameraman, which I used to work out with, has told me that the saying in network news is “if it can bleed, it can die”. Since then, I have heard from other people about the nastiness of the industry.
During COVID, Mrs. Maxfield started looking up what happened to some of the people she interviewed who touched her. This curiosity prompted this book. I remember that many years ago, so many I forgot when the folks who work in Israeli TV went on strike. This was when there was only one channel. The talent went on the road for speaking engagement, telling behind-the-scenes stories, making jokes, conversations, and more. Those were wonderful events, and this book reminded me of them.
Living in Northern New Jersey for much of my life, I certainly have seen Mrs. Maxfield on TV. Like the people you meet in your high school reunion, some of the stories she wrote about are very familiar, others vaguely, and others I have no recollection of.
In her book, More After the Break TV reporter Jen Maxfield counters those claims but does admit it’s a difficult profession to be in. The author follows up on a few of the many stories she covered over the years, in more detail than a few seconds on TV.
What surprised me about this book, is the honesty, as well as openness with which the author writes. For a short book, about various subjects, each one with its own history, it’s surprisingly candid. Mrs. Maxfield is honest about her feelings as an intruder in people’s most difficult times. The death of a child or a loved one, funerals, horrific accidents, and more. Even though she makes sure to tell the audience she tries to be sensitive and not shove camera or microphone in people’s faces, it still takes a tremendous about of chutzpah to knock on someone’s door and beg for an interview, the day their child died.
I don’t know if Mrs. Maxfield wrote this book as part of a speaking campaign, or just out of curiosity about her old stories during COVID, as she mentioned. Either way, it’s a very enjoyable, open, personal, and sometimes tear-jerking book well worth reading.
February 4, 2023
I liked it and since I'm working on something similar (going back to stories and their subjects after a gap), I found it educational as well. The chosen stories and the interview subjects are compelling, thought-provoking and optimistic in tone. Even though I believe one has to be personally invested in the aftermath of each subject to be interested in knowing where and how the subject is now, still casual readers can find many amusing details and anecdotes here, even if they simply like non-fiction and general curiosity about journalistic schedules and careers.
Maxfield has a cozy authoritative voice. She ended up following up on the stories given below, after some other former interview subjects refused outright and she was unable to locate the current whereabouts of others:
2003 Staten Island ferry disaster (Paul Esposito, Kerry Griffiths)
2005 Hurricane Katrina survivors
2011 (Alleged) Drunk Driving incident victim Tiffany Jantelle
2011 Cancer Survivors
2012 Domestic Violence attempted homicide (Tamika Holland)
2017: Sayfullo Saipov's terror truck attack in Lower Manhattan (Darren Drake)
2018: East Brook Middle School bus crash
1999: Prisoners incarcerated in Green Haven Prison on drug charges (Penn Univ. student Chris Clemente’ and muscular dystrophy sufferer Terence Stevens) arrest, conviction and incarceration on drug charges.
Some people's predicament will make you cry, the choices of others will infuriate and baffle you. I don't know whether some of Maxfield's opinions are based on her working for liberal TV networks or if she's a Democrat but she is professional in her retellings. The book benefits from the advice from her editor who told her to include her personal life and feelings, juggling a comfortable career and home while reporting on misery, adversity and hope and faith. It made Maxfield sound human than a hound.
She wonders about what happened to Lee Parker — the homeless guy who was given the key to Elizabeth, New Jersey after his action (and that of his friend Ivan White) to handover a trashcan backpack to police averted the bombing of a train station in 2016. Ivan White has since died and Maxfield was unable to find Parker and leaves you wondering how he's doing (if he's still alive and not in trouble).
Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. All the best to the author.
Maxfield has a cozy authoritative voice. She ended up following up on the stories given below, after some other former interview subjects refused outright and she was unable to locate the current whereabouts of others:
2003 Staten Island ferry disaster (Paul Esposito, Kerry Griffiths)
2005 Hurricane Katrina survivors
2011 (Alleged) Drunk Driving incident victim Tiffany Jantelle
2011 Cancer Survivors
2012 Domestic Violence attempted homicide (Tamika Holland)
2017: Sayfullo Saipov's terror truck attack in Lower Manhattan (Darren Drake)
2018: East Brook Middle School bus crash
1999: Prisoners incarcerated in Green Haven Prison on drug charges (Penn Univ. student Chris Clemente’ and muscular dystrophy sufferer Terence Stevens) arrest, conviction and incarceration on drug charges.
Some people's predicament will make you cry, the choices of others will infuriate and baffle you. I don't know whether some of Maxfield's opinions are based on her working for liberal TV networks or if she's a Democrat but she is professional in her retellings. The book benefits from the advice from her editor who told her to include her personal life and feelings, juggling a comfortable career and home while reporting on misery, adversity and hope and faith. It made Maxfield sound human than a hound.
She wonders about what happened to Lee Parker — the homeless guy who was given the key to Elizabeth, New Jersey after his action (and that of his friend Ivan White) to handover a trashcan backpack to police averted the bombing of a train station in 2016. Ivan White has since died and Maxfield was unable to find Parker and leaves you wondering how he's doing (if he's still alive and not in trouble).
Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. All the best to the author.
August 11, 2022
In the book, "More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to 10 Unforgettable New Stories," Jen Maxfield revisits some of her most compelling news stories to learn how the major news events altered people's lives. I found that the book was Jen's way of recognizing their triumph and efforts to reclaim and redefine their lives after dreadful and heartbreaking circumstances.
As a reporter, Jen has delivered thousands of news stories and interviews. She often walks into people's lives when they are at a turning point. Some of these events are complex and complicated. Jen points out that too often these types of stories are left as cliffhangers with no follow-up.
In the book, Jen revisits are centered around survival, so it's understandable why she would want to check in on the people who were highly impacted. She wants them to know that they're experience and the lessons learned are worth more than a sound byte or a one-minute news story.
As a journalist, I completely understand the desire to do additional reporting on compelling new stories or major news events. Telling more can provide further information of value that helps people in the story and the viewers. I applaud Jen for using circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage her to do a follow-up. Her delivery of the information demonstrates her talent as a news reporter.
In terms of format, I listened to the narration of the book. The only drawback for me was that she read the book as if she were giving a news report. This delivery is great for the introduction. It sets the tone. However, her news cadence took away from some of the emotional scenes that she was constructing. A voice actor would have delivered an emotion like fear with a quaky tone in their voice, which could draw the reader in more and connect with the moment.
Jen shares that she wrote the book for people who want to learn how information becomes a news story and for aspiring journalists. She does provide some tips here and there, but the book is not instructional.
Overall, I would say well done.
As a reporter, Jen has delivered thousands of news stories and interviews. She often walks into people's lives when they are at a turning point. Some of these events are complex and complicated. Jen points out that too often these types of stories are left as cliffhangers with no follow-up.
In the book, Jen revisits are centered around survival, so it's understandable why she would want to check in on the people who were highly impacted. She wants them to know that they're experience and the lessons learned are worth more than a sound byte or a one-minute news story.
As a journalist, I completely understand the desire to do additional reporting on compelling new stories or major news events. Telling more can provide further information of value that helps people in the story and the viewers. I applaud Jen for using circumstances around the COVID-19 pandemic to encourage her to do a follow-up. Her delivery of the information demonstrates her talent as a news reporter.
In terms of format, I listened to the narration of the book. The only drawback for me was that she read the book as if she were giving a news report. This delivery is great for the introduction. It sets the tone. However, her news cadence took away from some of the emotional scenes that she was constructing. A voice actor would have delivered an emotion like fear with a quaky tone in their voice, which could draw the reader in more and connect with the moment.
Jen shares that she wrote the book for people who want to learn how information becomes a news story and for aspiring journalists. She does provide some tips here and there, but the book is not instructional.
Overall, I would say well done.
December 6, 2022
4.5 stars rounded to 5!
New York news reporter Jen Maxfield follows up on ten news stories that she covered during her extensive career in one of the most newsworthy places in the world!
I thoroughly enjoyed these follow up stories and found most of them very interesting. It was fascinating seeing how people were doing many years later, such as the man who lost his legs in the Long Island Ferry accident many years ago. I teared up at the story of the man who happened to be riding his bike, at a time he normally doesn't, and was killed in a terrorist attack. I learned important lessons, most importantly the perseverance of the human spirit. I learned how good people can be (a young girl pulled over on the street to help a dying dog) and I learned how bad people can be (the man who hit and killed her drove off).
Ms. Maxfield also does a great job of highlighting some issues that still need some work or legislation - such as how the man who hit the girl in the road got LESS time for driving away than he would have if he stayed (because he was drunk, but could not prove he was drunk because he left the scene).
There are many more stories, many more examples, and I don't want to give away all the details of the stories. Suffice to say that many of the people highlighted in Ms. Maxfield's book will stick with me for a long time.
Downgraded .5 stars for getting into some politics at the end of the book. I actually really impressed that she shied away from politics for most of the book, but for some reason at the end she decided to add her political 2 cents and it took away from the book for me. Most of these stories are bi-partisan, and meant to be uniting; bringing together people who are all part of the same human family. But bringing in politics is divisive and leaves me feeling angry and annoyed.
I listened to this book on audio, and the narration is great.
Special thank you to Netgalley and Greenleaf Book Group Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
New York news reporter Jen Maxfield follows up on ten news stories that she covered during her extensive career in one of the most newsworthy places in the world!
I thoroughly enjoyed these follow up stories and found most of them very interesting. It was fascinating seeing how people were doing many years later, such as the man who lost his legs in the Long Island Ferry accident many years ago. I teared up at the story of the man who happened to be riding his bike, at a time he normally doesn't, and was killed in a terrorist attack. I learned important lessons, most importantly the perseverance of the human spirit. I learned how good people can be (a young girl pulled over on the street to help a dying dog) and I learned how bad people can be (the man who hit and killed her drove off).
Ms. Maxfield also does a great job of highlighting some issues that still need some work or legislation - such as how the man who hit the girl in the road got LESS time for driving away than he would have if he stayed (because he was drunk, but could not prove he was drunk because he left the scene).
There are many more stories, many more examples, and I don't want to give away all the details of the stories. Suffice to say that many of the people highlighted in Ms. Maxfield's book will stick with me for a long time.
Downgraded .5 stars for getting into some politics at the end of the book. I actually really impressed that she shied away from politics for most of the book, but for some reason at the end she decided to add her political 2 cents and it took away from the book for me. Most of these stories are bi-partisan, and meant to be uniting; bringing together people who are all part of the same human family. But bringing in politics is divisive and leaves me feeling angry and annoyed.
I listened to this book on audio, and the narration is great.
Special thank you to Netgalley and Greenleaf Book Group Press for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
December 12, 2022
Over many years in her career as a news reporter, Jen Maxfield often found herself wondering what happened to the subjects of stories she covered. This thought turned into a book that recapped ten of the top news events Maxfield reported on from her college years to her professional career.
Each story in this book touched my heart in some way or another. There is something about local news in particular that strikes a nerve with me. It's easy to see headlines about tragedies and brush them off but hearing the stories, in part told by the family and friends closest to the incident, provokes a lot of feeling, whether it be anger, sadness, or hope. The fact that I am a New Jersey native and could recall the locations where these stories take place added to that emotion for me. I enjoyed the varied subject material of each story and appreciated that they weren't all tear jerkers with unhappy endings. All of these stories ended in a way that there is potential for hope.
Maxfield not only covered the facts of these memorable stories but also detailed her job as a breaking news reporter-- examples include what it means to be first on site, how to coax stories from mourning family members, and etiquette on approaching a scene. I didn't know much about reporting before this book and found these facts to be interesting. The author also shows a lot of self-awareness in how she views her job. Reporters have to tow the line between doing their job effectively and keeping moral boundaries in place so they don't push subjects away and Maxfield describes how she tries to do that in her career.
My only criticism is this book, at times, felt impersonal, which is something the author reflects on at the conclusion. Maxfield does occasionally throw in details about how she felt at a certain moment in time, but overall, the stories still read like they are extended news' stories. It was also difficult to tell what was initially reported on and what was considered an update to the story.
*Thanks to NetGalley for exchanging an audio copy of this book for an unbiased review!
Each story in this book touched my heart in some way or another. There is something about local news in particular that strikes a nerve with me. It's easy to see headlines about tragedies and brush them off but hearing the stories, in part told by the family and friends closest to the incident, provokes a lot of feeling, whether it be anger, sadness, or hope. The fact that I am a New Jersey native and could recall the locations where these stories take place added to that emotion for me. I enjoyed the varied subject material of each story and appreciated that they weren't all tear jerkers with unhappy endings. All of these stories ended in a way that there is potential for hope.
Maxfield not only covered the facts of these memorable stories but also detailed her job as a breaking news reporter-- examples include what it means to be first on site, how to coax stories from mourning family members, and etiquette on approaching a scene. I didn't know much about reporting before this book and found these facts to be interesting. The author also shows a lot of self-awareness in how she views her job. Reporters have to tow the line between doing their job effectively and keeping moral boundaries in place so they don't push subjects away and Maxfield describes how she tries to do that in her career.
My only criticism is this book, at times, felt impersonal, which is something the author reflects on at the conclusion. Maxfield does occasionally throw in details about how she felt at a certain moment in time, but overall, the stories still read like they are extended news' stories. It was also difficult to tell what was initially reported on and what was considered an update to the story.
*Thanks to NetGalley for exchanging an audio copy of this book for an unbiased review!
July 4, 2022
I, like you, read the blurb about the book. But beyond that, I didn't look more into it. I didn't google Jen Maxfield or what stories she might have in this book.
I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this book. It's 20/20 meets "where are they now". It's the early 00's true crime/ news version. As a true crime junkie and a person who graduated in 2004 this is right up my alley.
And I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd like Jen's Narration style. You can tell she's a fantastic news voice. But the style needed for audiobooks is different. But by the second and 3rd stories she really found her stride and.
I also really liked how she as a privileged white woman takes the time out in this book to call out racial inequalities. Why did one family have to fight all the way to the president to get their daughter, her to save their other daughters' life? While another family is afforded medical trials and can travel the world.
The stories that really stuck with me were:Tamika. Wow...... The power of a mother's love and how you can will yourself to be okay, so your kids don't see you're not. And, Tiffany and the hit-and-run. I know Jen had to be professional. But Brian is a MURDERER. The fact that he still had his party just left me speechless. And I'm in shock that in New Jersey if you kill a person and flee the scene you're less likely to serve a drastic prison sentence than if you stay and help. That's so backwards.
I think that this is a really powerful book and could be a trend in books heading forward. And this book is poignant now heading forward in news media where there is such an attack on news. Seeing how the news can really affect people they are reporting on positively and how they are reporting in a way that is true and honest even all these years later is something I think the world really needs to hear.
Thank you, Jen Maxfield, NetGalley, Greenleaf Book Group Press, and Greenleaf Audiobooks for allowing me the chance to read this book.
I THOROUGHLY enjoyed this book. It's 20/20 meets "where are they now". It's the early 00's true crime/ news version. As a true crime junkie and a person who graduated in 2004 this is right up my alley.
And I'll be honest, I didn't think I'd like Jen's Narration style. You can tell she's a fantastic news voice. But the style needed for audiobooks is different. But by the second and 3rd stories she really found her stride and.
I also really liked how she as a privileged white woman takes the time out in this book to call out racial inequalities. Why did one family have to fight all the way to the president to get their daughter, her to save their other daughters' life? While another family is afforded medical trials and can travel the world.
The stories that really stuck with me were:Tamika. Wow...... The power of a mother's love and how you can will yourself to be okay, so your kids don't see you're not. And, Tiffany and the hit-and-run. I know Jen had to be professional. But Brian is a MURDERER. The fact that he still had his party just left me speechless. And I'm in shock that in New Jersey if you kill a person and flee the scene you're less likely to serve a drastic prison sentence than if you stay and help. That's so backwards.
I think that this is a really powerful book and could be a trend in books heading forward. And this book is poignant now heading forward in news media where there is such an attack on news. Seeing how the news can really affect people they are reporting on positively and how they are reporting in a way that is true and honest even all these years later is something I think the world really needs to hear.
Thank you, Jen Maxfield, NetGalley, Greenleaf Book Group Press, and Greenleaf Audiobooks for allowing me the chance to read this book.
April 17, 2022
Have you ever wondered what happened to a memorable person you heard or read about in a tragic breaking-news story? Many of us do, including the reporters who break the story but then move on to the next headline-grabbing news item. In More After the Break, Emmy Award-winning broadcast reporter Jen Maxfield follows up on almost a dozen news stories that stuck with her through the years to learn how victims and their families have fared. All center on events and crimes that took place in New Jersey and New York 10 to 20 years ago, with several having made national news.
Among the people Maxfield revisits through in-depth interviews, we meet the parents of a promising young man fatally run over by a terrorist in lower Manhattan along with a handful of tourists; children, parents, and witnesses to a preventable, tragic school-trip bus accident in Paramus, New Jersey; parents, family, and friends of young adults involved in a cruel hit-and-run accident that killed a compassionate young woman assisting an injured animal in the road; and survivors of a horrific ferry crash in New York Harbor. While the publisher describes this book as being filled with stories of hope and inspiration, readers likely will be left with a feeling of sadness due to the nature of the material—lives senselessly lost or disrupted forever.
Maxfield brings an admirable warmth and compassion to her profiles, traits not typically associated with reporters. Most fascinating are revelations of her behind-the-scenes struggles and foibles, told with candor. We learn the real ins and outs of the reporting profession and the toll it takes on its practitioners. This absorbing collection of vivid, well-told news stories will leave readers looking forward to future books by this talented author.
This review is based on an Advance Reader’s Copy provided for free by the publisher.
Among the people Maxfield revisits through in-depth interviews, we meet the parents of a promising young man fatally run over by a terrorist in lower Manhattan along with a handful of tourists; children, parents, and witnesses to a preventable, tragic school-trip bus accident in Paramus, New Jersey; parents, family, and friends of young adults involved in a cruel hit-and-run accident that killed a compassionate young woman assisting an injured animal in the road; and survivors of a horrific ferry crash in New York Harbor. While the publisher describes this book as being filled with stories of hope and inspiration, readers likely will be left with a feeling of sadness due to the nature of the material—lives senselessly lost or disrupted forever.
Maxfield brings an admirable warmth and compassion to her profiles, traits not typically associated with reporters. Most fascinating are revelations of her behind-the-scenes struggles and foibles, told with candor. We learn the real ins and outs of the reporting profession and the toll it takes on its practitioners. This absorbing collection of vivid, well-told news stories will leave readers looking forward to future books by this talented author.
This review is based on an Advance Reader’s Copy provided for free by the publisher.
July 15, 2022
More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories
by Jen Maxfield
Publisher : Greenleaf Book Group Press
Publication date : July 12, 2022
Greenleaf Book Group Press sent me an Advanced readers More After the Break for Review which is as follows…
Jen Maxfield highlights ten career defining stories in More After the Break, the stories she highlights are often heartbreaking, some inspirational and others simply make you angry, but this book highlights Jen Maxfield’s compassion as well as the stories she covers.
In this book she introduces some Inspirational people often at the most difficult time of their lives. The ten year old girl who survived the same bus crash that killed her best friend, the man that lost both of his legs, in a ferry crash but not his hope, or his sense of humor, and the nurse who came from another country, who saved his life, the woman who was an endurance athlete and had Lung Cancer, her will to live, evident . A young woman who gave her life for an animal, a Wall Street executive on an ill-fated bike ride, a preschooler whose health hinged on an immigration battle, a family who lost everything in a hurricane, a mother who fought back against domestic violence, and a man who stood up for his rights while seated in his wheelchair.
Being able to return to these people years, even decades later news gives Maxfield an opportunity to ask the burning questions she had always pondered: What happened after the live truck pulled away? What is the rest of the story?
I give More After the Break five out of five Stars!
Happy Reading!
by Jen Maxfield
Publisher : Greenleaf Book Group Press
Publication date : July 12, 2022
Greenleaf Book Group Press sent me an Advanced readers More After the Break for Review which is as follows…
Jen Maxfield highlights ten career defining stories in More After the Break, the stories she highlights are often heartbreaking, some inspirational and others simply make you angry, but this book highlights Jen Maxfield’s compassion as well as the stories she covers.
In this book she introduces some Inspirational people often at the most difficult time of their lives. The ten year old girl who survived the same bus crash that killed her best friend, the man that lost both of his legs, in a ferry crash but not his hope, or his sense of humor, and the nurse who came from another country, who saved his life, the woman who was an endurance athlete and had Lung Cancer, her will to live, evident . A young woman who gave her life for an animal, a Wall Street executive on an ill-fated bike ride, a preschooler whose health hinged on an immigration battle, a family who lost everything in a hurricane, a mother who fought back against domestic violence, and a man who stood up for his rights while seated in his wheelchair.
Being able to return to these people years, even decades later news gives Maxfield an opportunity to ask the burning questions she had always pondered: What happened after the live truck pulled away? What is the rest of the story?
I give More After the Break five out of five Stars!
Happy Reading!
August 7, 2022
There was a very interesting book Help just report and start it out in upstate New York it worked away through the Major New Stations. She would take stories she did as a roving reporter for these news stations and how she really got to know these people and how she wanted to go back in time to see all these people.. She interviewed these people in the beginning but she wanted to know how their lives turned out. And how she juggled being married and have any children and how was she dealt with a lot of things. The hardest one of this book was about the bus being crashed In her Hometown she thought her children were hurt. This and it was a very interesting story because one of the girls who survived her friend did not survive that's the point we're muslims. How does family dealt with the tragedy and such. They started to scholarship for her and her friends family eventually moved because it bought not too many memories of her best friend. This book shows how you can survive tragedies and really understand what these people are going through. This reporter was amazing because she really couldn't empathize with these people and feel for them. Even when she went back to find out more of their stories they were willing to talk to her again and saying well we moved on with our lives and and And and it made me feel really hopeful how these people survived in the way she presented them. And she wrote it like a short story so everybody had to say and it was really well written because you read about the tragedy and then later on you found out how they move out with their lives. The book title says it all.
November 6, 2022
As a self-proclaimed Book Whisperer, I was drawn to read More After the Break: A Reporter Returns to Ten Unforgettable News Stories by Jen Maxfield. Maxfield spent years as a TV news reporter. We all know the stories we see on TV news reports generally have an ephemeral life. Maxfield revisits some of her most important stories featuring unforgettable people. Maxfield returns to meaningful stories and gives readers additional insight into the people involved.
Like her TV reporting skill, Maxfield’s writing skills are equally compelling. She begins with “The Door Knock.” In it, Maxfield describes encountering a woman whose grandson had been murdered in a drive=by shooting. Some time later, Maxfield asks Gloria Sexton, the young man’s grandmother, for another interview—a follow-up story. She goes on to describe how she decided to write the stories in the book and about revisiting them.
While I was captivated by all of the stories, several stand out to me. Those include “The Long Way Home” and “A Daughter’s Love.” I also appreciate the way Maxfield brings the readers’ attention back to her introduction with her concluding story, “The Door Knock, Revisited.” Maxfield discovers for herself and her readers what happened later, after the public attention had turned away from the story. By returning to the stories, Maxfield gives her readers additional information and another look into the lives of people who were affected.
These stories can be read in the order in which they appear in the book or they can be read in any sequence that strikes individual readers. I like that notion that one can return to the stories and gain something extra with each reading.
Like her TV reporting skill, Maxfield’s writing skills are equally compelling. She begins with “The Door Knock.” In it, Maxfield describes encountering a woman whose grandson had been murdered in a drive=by shooting. Some time later, Maxfield asks Gloria Sexton, the young man’s grandmother, for another interview—a follow-up story. She goes on to describe how she decided to write the stories in the book and about revisiting them.
While I was captivated by all of the stories, several stand out to me. Those include “The Long Way Home” and “A Daughter’s Love.” I also appreciate the way Maxfield brings the readers’ attention back to her introduction with her concluding story, “The Door Knock, Revisited.” Maxfield discovers for herself and her readers what happened later, after the public attention had turned away from the story. By returning to the stories, Maxfield gives her readers additional information and another look into the lives of people who were affected.
These stories can be read in the order in which they appear in the book or they can be read in any sequence that strikes individual readers. I like that notion that one can return to the stories and gain something extra with each reading.
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