Editor’s Note: This is the second part of an essay titled “My Harvard, by Andrew Holleran” that ran in the very first issue of The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review (Winter 1994). The first part was republished in our tenth anniversary issue (Jan.-Feb. 2004). In it, Holleran discussed his years as an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1960’s, focusing especially on two classmates: Richard (Dick), a shy, eccentric English major; and Joel, a confident, ambitious artist from New York. He also discussed two books that had made an impression: Erik Erikson’s Childhood and Society (1963), which argues that there are certain crises in life that we all must meet, one of which is “the Crisis of Intimacy”; and Henry James’ novel The Ambassadors, in particular a scene in which an older man whom life has passed by tells a younger man: “Live all you can—it’s a mistake not to.”
Andrew Holleran has been a regular writer for this magazine since this piece in the first issue, and his contribution to its survival and success are immeasurable. His novels include Dancer from the Dance, The Beauty of Men, and Grief.
