This is a long novel. It would only be half as long if I ended the story when the three boys were thirty-eight. But I didn't. The following year, history was made. I thought you would like to know.
They met in grade school becoming best friends forever. A diminutive Italian street hustler, PETEY DUFALA, a football and baseball star whose future was cut short by injuries, JOE THOMAS, and a hulking Ukranian, BENNY LEVESHENKO, sent to America by his grandmother for reasons so mysterious, it would take years to unravel.
They are on a journey together. They were always on a journey. To where? Your guess is probably better than the author's. Creating three businesses together only to see each fizzle out in SPECTACULAR fashion, thinking they found the girl of their dreams only to see each relationship fizzle out in an even more SPECTACULAR fashion, the three boys are now thirty-nine years old and on the brink of despair and obscurity. And then HARVARD UNIVERSITY comes to call with the assistance of one of their most illustrious graduates.
The idea is to use PETEY, JOE, and BENNY as a Social Experiment. Take three middle-age boys who have nothing, beholden to no one, possibly ready to commit emotional and psychological suicide. Three boys who tried college once in their teens and didn't quite fit in. But now, after twenty years of floundering, all three think they made the mistake of a lifetime. Harvard sends them an acceptance letter, gives them a several credits for work experience, and, VOILA!!!, Harvard changes its image from a BASTION of ELITISM to a SAVIOR for the EMOTIONALLY WOUNDED. If it works, it will become front page news around the world. Being a 'Social Experiment' was one business the boys never tried, so without hesitation, they immediately climb on board.
At the center of it all is LIAM DARVIL, nearing seventy and one of the wealthiest men in America. While a quarterback at Harvard, his PASSING record still holds. As a man, PASSING himself off as 'white', or at least not validating his grandfather's 'color', may not hold quite as long. He never felt the need to talk about 'color', what you see is what you get and what difference does it make anyway? Until one fateful day in one of HARVARD'S seediest taverns, the truth is revealed for everyone to see. How the people who orbit LIAM DARVIL'S world react to the news is the fulcrum of this novel.
PETEY, JOE, and BENNY'S relationship with LIAM DARVIL, HARVARD, and their new circle of friends mix humor, tragic humor, and utter pathos on almost every page. Oh, and I forgot about WINKUS, Benny's forty-five pound TALKING cat (students still swear to it) who immediately becomes the darling of HARVARD YARD. She has secrets she will only divulge to the author. They begin on the first page. Read on.