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data-vars-ga-ll-to-actn="Entertament" data-vars-ga-outbound-lk=" class="e9l0kn00 css-10asp0m e1c1bym14"><span emProp="name">Entertament</span></a><meta emProp="posn" ntent="1" /></li><li emProp="emListElement" emSpe emType=" class="css-zxq36b e9l0kn01"><a emProp="em" href="/select-excliv/" data-vars-ga-ux-element="Breadcmbs" data-vars-ga-ll-to-actn="Esquire Select Excliv" data-vars-ga-outbound-lk=" class="e9l0kn00 css-10asp0m e1c1bym14"><span emProp="name">Esquire Select Excliv</span></a><meta emProp="posn" ntent="2" /></li><style data-emotn="css huh8md">{display:none;}{paddg:0.25rem;ntent:">";}</style><li emProp="emListElement" emSpe emType=" class="css-huh8md e9l0kn01"><a emProp="em" href="/entertament/a27434009/benngton-llege-oral-history-bret-easton-ellis/" data-vars-ga-ux-element="Breadcmbs" data-vars-ga-ll-to-actn="The Secret Oral History of Benngton: The 1980s' Most Dent College" data-vars-ga-outbound-lk=" class="e9l0kn00 css-10asp0m e1c1bym14"><span emProp="name">The Secret Oral History of Benngton: The 1980s' Most Dent College</span></a><meta emProp="posn" ntent="3" /></li></ol></nav><style data-emotn="css g4r5va">{font-fay:Glanz,Glanz-fallback,Tim,Serif;font-weight:normal;grid-lumn:1/-1;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;marg-top:0.9375rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:2rem;le-height:1.25;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{font-size:2.625rem;le-height:1.1;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:3.125rem;le-height:1.1;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{font-size:3.37499rem;le-height:1.1;}}</style><h1 class="css-g4r5va exadjwu10"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p0"></span>The Secret Oral History of Benngton: The 1980s' Most Dent College<span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></h1><style data-emotn="css 2qf7xf">{lor:#515150;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;marg-bottom:0.625rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.0625rem;le-height:1.2;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.3125rem;le-height:1.2;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:1.3125rem;le-height:1.3;}} a{-webk-text-ratn:unrle;text-ratn:unrle;text-ratn-thickns:0.0625rem;text-ratn-lor:#FF3A30;text-unrle-offset:0.25rem;lor:#000000;-webk-transn:all 0.3s ease--out;transn:all 0.3s ease--out;} a:hover{lor:#595959;text-ratn-lor:borr-lk-body-hover;}</style><div class="css-2qf7xf exadjwu8"><p>Fall, 1982. A new hman class arriv at arty, louche, and expensive Benngton College. Among the dggi, rebels, heirs, and posers: future Gen X lerary stars Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jonathan Lethem. What happened over the next four years would spark sndal, myth, and some of the thors' greatt novels. Return to a mp and an era like no other.</p></div><style data-emotn="css 18k4ks7">{lor:#161616;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;letter-spacg:0.02rem;marg-bottom:0.625rem;paddg-right:0.3125rem;text-transform:upperse;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:0.70003rem;le-height:1.4;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{font-size:0.70003rem;le-height:1.3;}} span{font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;letter-spacg:0rem;text-transform:palize;}@media(max-width: 48rem){ span{le-height:2rem;font-size:0.875rem;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){ span{le-height:2rem;font-size:0.875rem;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){ span{le-height:2rem;font-size:0.875rem;}}</style><div class="css-18k4ks7 exadjwu7"><style data-emotn="css 1eqkg5m">{lor:#161616;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-style:normal;letter-spacg:0.02rem;paddg-right:0.3125rem;text-transform:upperse;-webk-text-stroke:0.005rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:0.70003rem;le-height:1.4;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{font-size:0.70003rem;le-height:1.3;}}</style><addrs class="css-1eqkg5m ehvvd9m2"><style data-emotn="css 19e0noj">{lor:#161616;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;letter-spacg:0.02rem;paddg-right:0.3125rem;text-transform:upperse;-webk-text-stroke:0.005rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:0.70003rem;le-height:1.4;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{font-size:0.70003rem;le-height:1.3;}}</style><span class="css-19e0noj ehvvd9m1">By Lili Anolik</span><style data-emotn="css 1bcsdhu">{display:le-block;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;marg-left:0.625rem;text-transform:upperse;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:0.75rem;le-height:1.3;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{font-size:0.75rem;le-height:1.3;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:0.75rem;le-height:1.3;}}</style><time class="css-1bcsdhu exadjwu6">Published: May 28, 2019</time></addrs></div><style data-emotn="css wkpw2c">{display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webk-flex-directn:lumn;-ms-flex-directn:lumn;flex-directn:lumn;-webk-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webk-jtify-ntent:center;jtify-ntent:center;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;}</style><div class="no-prt css-wkpw2c exadjwu15"><style data-emotn="css 1hpjtwr">{display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;posn:relative;marg-top:0.9375rem;}</style><div class="ntent-hear-actns css-1hpjtwr exadjwu14"><style data-emotn="css 1mi99c5">{background-lor:#FF3A30;lor:#000000;borr:th solid #FF3A30;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webk-flex-directn:row;-ms-flex-directn:row;flex-directn:row;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;paddg:0.625rem 1.25rem;marg-top:0rem;marg-bottom:0rem;-webk-text-ratn:none;text-ratn:none;text-transform:upperse;-webk-transn:all 0.3s ease--out;transn:all 0.3s ease--out;-webk-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webk-jtify-ntent:center;jtify-ntent:center;paddg-top:0.85rem;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;width:to;borr-radi:2rem;background:#FF3A30;font-size:0.875rem;le-height:1.3;letter-spacg:0.04rem;}{background-lor:#ffffff;lor:#000;cursor:poter;borr:th solid #FF3A30;} svg{fill:#000000;} svg>path{fill:#000000;}{marg-left:1rem;} svg>path{fill:#000000;}{outle:0.125rem dotted #000000;outle-offset:0.2rem;} svg{fill:#000000;}</style><button data-tooltip-id="article-hear-save" class="ntentSaveButton css-1mi99c5 e12nq69g1"><style data-emotn="css 7g4d0s">{width:1rem;height:1rem;marg-right:0.625rem;} path{fill:#ffffff;} path{fill:#ffffff;}</style><svg xmlns=" fill="none" style="fill: var(--primary, #000);" viewBox="0 0 24 24" class="css-7g4d0s e10k4xbi2"><tle>saved ntaed in</tle><sc>An empty outled in ditg the optn to save an em</sc><path fill-le="evenodd" d="m12 17.408 7 4.4V3.5H5v18.308l7-4.4Zm-5.325 1.323L12 15.384l5.325 3.347V5.23H6.675v13.5Z" clip-le="evenodd"></path></svg>Save Article</button><style data-emotn="css 13tt5c6">{width:160px;text-align:left;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;letter-spacg:0.045rem;font-size:0.70284rem;le-height:1.1;lor:#595959;text-transform:none;}</style></div></div></div></div></hear><style data-emotn="css 149neno">{marg-left:to;marg-right:to;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;max-width:m(lc(20.625rem * 2 - 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The Moveable Feast had moved ahead six s and across the Atlantic, and while, of urse, southwtern Vermont wasn’t Paris, somehow, the early-to-mid eighti, was, was jt as sly, louche, low-down, and darkly perdu. And speakg of sly, louche, low-down, and darkly perdu, check out the habués. Seated around the table, ready to ge on the nversatn if not the food (e, the Pernod of s era, is a notor appete supprsant), berets swapped for sunglass, were the neo F. Stt Fzgerald, Ernt Hemgway, and Djuna Barn: Bret Easton Ellis, future wrer of <em>Amerin Psycho </em>and charter member of the lerary Brat Pack; Jonathan Lethem, future wrer of <em>The Fortrs of Solu </em>and MacArthur geni; and Donna Tartt, future wrer of <em>The Secret History </em>and wner of the Pulzer Prize for <em>The Goldfch. </em>All three were the class of 1986. All three were a long way om home—Los Angel, Brooklyn, and Grenada, Mississippi, rpectively. All three were, at var tim, fatuated and disappoted wh one another, their iendships stimulated and fueled by rivalry. And all three would mythologize Benngton—the baroque wickedns, the malignant glamour, the rptn so profound as to be exactly what is meant by the word <em>nce</em>— their fictn that, as turns out, wasn’t que, and thereby bee myths themselv.<br /></p><p data-no-id="2" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0">Every prodigy needs his or her very own Gert Ste or Sherwood Anrson—i.e., a mentor and mol. Benngton had those profn, teachers who were also artists: journalist Joe McGniss; novelists and short-story wrers Nicholas Delban and Arturo Vivante; and poet, mystic, and self-chronicler Cl Frericks. And then there were the supportg figur (and fellow stunts), so fascatg they threatened to eclipse the ma: wrers Jill Eisenstadt, David Lipsky, Lawrence David, Regald Shepherd; Brixton Smh Start, lead guarist of post-punk Brish band the Fall; and Qutana Roo Dunne, only child of Joan Didn and John Gregory Dunne.</p><p data-no-id="3" class="body-text css-aeyldl et3p2gv0">So grab a tray, pull up a chair, and try not to look like you’re eavdroppg.<br /></p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="4" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Face, Black, Head, Nose, Black-and-whe, Ch, Forehead, Portra, Eye, Jaw, " tle="Face, Black, Head, Nose, Black-and-whe, Ch, Forehead, Portra, Eye, Jaw, " loadg="lazy" width="3421" height="2242" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Bret Easton Ellis</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Ian Gtler.</span></figptn></div></div></div><style data-emotn="css 18pb4rg">{borr:0;borr-bottom:th solid black;marg:1.875rem 0;clear:both;}</style><hr data-no-id="5" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><style data-emotn="css qplj0i">{font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;marg-bottom:0.625rem;marg-top:0.625rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:2.125rem;le-height:1.2;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{font-size:2.25rem;le-height:1.3;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:2.5rem;le-height:1.1;}} b, strong{font-fay:her;font-weight:bold;} em, i{font-fay:her;font-style:alic;}</style><h2 data-no-id="6" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">FALL SEMESTER, 1982</h2><p data-no-id="7" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRIXTON SMITH START, </strong>CLASS OF ’85, DROPOUT; MUSICIAN: Benngton looked like somethg out of a child’s fairy tale. It was so isolated and so betiful, and was green and surround by mountas. At the center of mp was a buildg—tall, whe, very grand, wh lumns and a bell clock—lled Commons. If you stood ont of Commons, you’d see, if you looked to one si, an old graveyard, and to the other si, a meadow. And then, if you looked straight ahead, a long, lh, rollg lawn led by lovely, New England-y clapboard ho, creatg this visual rridor so that your eye was drawn to the end of , where the earth sudnly fell away, jt—<em>poof</em>—vanished. Not really, of urse, but looked as if did. We lled “the End of the World.” Mists would roll there at night, the swirlg mists so thick you uldn’t see your hand when you held up to your face. The mor was that the mp was the se of an ancient Native Amerin burial ground. Supposedly was one of the few spots on earth where all four wds met at the same time. And there <em>was </em>somethg sacred about , somethg hnted. When I was at Benngton, I felt like I was a kd of I don’t know what—a time warp or a different dimensn or somethg. It was like all of , llectively, were tappg the source. The energy was like nothg I’ve experienced anyplace else. It was amazg.</p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="8" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><style data-emotn="css 1eiql25">{text-align:center;marg:0rem;paddg-top:0.9375rem;paddg-bottom:0.9375rem;}</style><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><style data-emotn="css ow0dpz">{borr:0.3125rem solid #FF3A30;borr-radi:100%;ntent:'';display:block;height:2.1875rem;left:50%;marg:-0.99rem to 0 -1.33rem;posn:absolute;width:2.1875rem;}</style><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><style data-emotn="css la9czl">{font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:1.625rem;le-height:1.2;marg:0rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.75rem;le-height:1.2;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:2.375rem;le-height:1.2;}} b, strong{font-fay:her;font-weight:bold;} em, i{font-fay:her;font-style:alic;}{ntent:'＂';display:block;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:3.4375rem;le-height:0.72;font-style:alic;paddg:0.3125rem 0.875rem 0 0;}</style><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90"> “Bret was a star before anyone even knew about his wrg. . . . The people around him would all wear Wayfarers too.” —Pla Powers </blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="9" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS, </strong>CLASS OF ’86; WRITER: The shock of arrivg on mp the fall of 1982 was enormo. Growg up L. A., I had this yearng to get out, to go east, then to fally be there. My strongt memori are of my first two or three days. New England was so different om southern California—the physily of , the sentiment. It was a giant shift for me, and was overpowerg. And God, Benngton was small. There were 160 my hman class, maybe, if that.<br /></p><p data-no-id="10" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>IAN GITTLER, </strong>CLASS OF ’84; MUSICIAN/FILMMAKER: Bret me to Benngton a heavily srred young man. He had a lot of talent. He had a lot of problems. He also had a suse full of dgs.<br /></p><p data-no-id="11" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS, </strong>CLASS OF ’86; WRITER/EDITOR: Bret was a star at school before anyone even knew about his wrg. I had a csh on him. A lot of women did. The dg hall was this huge social thg, pecially weekend bnch. There’d be the Friday-night party, and then on Saturday morng we’d all s around to see who showed up wh who. Bret had a table, and the people around him would all wear Wayfarers too, and listen to him make mentary. It was lled “The Bret Ellis Show.” Like, “Are you gog to s over there wh ‘The Bret Ellis Show,’ or are you gog to s here?”</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="12" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Eyewear, Glass, Cool, Black hair, Grass, Eye, Se, Photography, Visn re, Outerwear, " tle="Eyewear, Glass, Cool, Black hair, Grass, Eye, Se, Photography, Visn re, Outerwear, " loadg="lazy" width="2654" height="1778" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Donna Tartt on the Benngton Commons Lawn at "The End of the World."</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Mark Norris</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="13" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>CLASS OF ’86; WRITER; INTERVIEWED IN <em>THE BENNINGTON VOICE, </em>OCTOBER 28, 1992: Tell me somethg, I heard that Benngton requir SAT sr now, is that te? . . . Bee I wouldn’t have been there if they had required them when I applied. I thk I got on a short story I sent . Nobody I know would have been there if they had required SAT sr. That was part of the reason I went to Benngton. . . . [E]verybody there was like the oddly gifted person who ma bad gras and hung out the parkg lot.</p><p data-no-id="14" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS</strong>: We would all joke about the applitn procs. Like, I got bee of my drawgs, bee of the pictur I drew.</p><p data-no-id="15" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM, </strong>CLASS OF ’86, DROPOUT; WRITER: College was an improbable choice for me. I’d gone to public school Brooklyn and then to the High School of Mic & Art Manhattan, where I stopped takg math class. I spent my entire senr year rvg marble the sculpture workshop. My anti-stutnal bias was so strong that when my school had s llege fair, I didn’t go. It was my girliend who brought me a Benngton applitn. I fell love wh the ia of Benngton bee of the way billed self. It was the anti--llege llege—no gras, and they’d adm you whout a high school diploma. Essentially, was self-selectg. Benngton was, for me, almost a perverse ambn. I liked that was famoly expensive. In some oblique way, I was takg revenge on my father. Like, “Okay, you pocketed the tun up to this pot, but I’m gog to h you hard now.” And Benngton me through. They gave me a good scholarship.</p><p data-no-id="16" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><style data-emotn="css f1dz33">{--data-embed-display:flex;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;clear:both;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}@media(m-width: 20rem){{width:100%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{width:100%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{width:50%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{width:50%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{width:50%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{width:50%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{width:50%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}}@media(m-width: 90rem){{width:50%;marg:0 to 0.9375rem;}} a span{right:1rem;} img{width:to;height:85vh;} a{display:-webk-le-box;display:-webk-le-flex;display:-ms-le-flexbox;display:le-flex;posn:var(--posn, relative);} img:not(.ewcw41w1){display:block;width:100%;height:to;-webk-align-self:flex-start;-ms-flex-em-align:flex-start;align-self:flex-start;}</style><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="17" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, People, Snapshot, Crew, Photography, Stock photography, Team, Black-and-whe, Fay, History, " tle="Photograph, People, Snapshot, Crew, Photography, Stock photography, Team, Black-and-whe, Fay, History, " loadg="lazy" width="2175" height="2901" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Jonathan Lethem (lower left) and iends, Brooklyn, the summer before he entered Benngton.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Jonathan Lethem</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="18" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRIXTON SMITH START: </strong>Proper heirs, the Barbara Huttons of my generatn, were there—Campbell’s soup and a DuPont and Ariadne Getty. Kids who were lerally om the Pilgrims, whose fai had traveled over on the <em>Mayflower</em>.</p><p data-no-id="19" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL</strong><strong>, </strong>CLASS OF ’83, DID NOT COMPLETE DEGREE; CLASSICIST/POET: I knew a girl there whose father llected Pissos. He gave her an allowance to llect Pisso’s etchgs. That was her hobby.</p><p data-no-id="20" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>You’d be shocked that this Neanrthal-lookg du sunbathg by a keg was actually, one day, gog to her the Benson & Hedg fortune. Benngton had the hight tun the untry. Also one of the hight attrn rat. Yeah, a lot of people didn’t make .</p><p data-no-id="21" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MAURA SPIEGEL, </strong>LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE FACULTY, 1984–92: A lleague of me, Richard Tristman, ed to say Benngton was like an anism that accepted foreign bodi or rejected them. You stuck or you jt didn’t.</p><p data-no-id="22" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>My roommate was Mark Norris. Mark was om the fabulo world of Santa Moni and Crossroads [progrsive private school]. That first night, there was a mixer. We were like, “All right, we’re llege boys now. Let’s meet some llege girls.” We walked to Commons and immediately ran to Lisa Fer and Brixton. They were a band and wore miskirts unr plaid shirts and had gelled hair and were unbelievably ol and punky and excg. Mark and I were like, “You’re great. We’re dogs. We’ll follow you anywhere.” </p><style data-emotn="css d9wkvk">{--data-embed-display:flex;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;clear:both;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}@media(m-width: 20rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}}@media(m-width: 90rem){{marg:to lc(50% - 50vw) 0.9375rem;width:100vw;}} a span{right:1rem;} img{width:to;height:85vh;} a{display:-webk-le-box;display:-webk-le-flex;display:-ms-le-flexbox;display:le-flex;posn:var(--posn, relative);} img:not(.ewcw41w1){display:block;width:100%;height:to;-webk-align-self:flex-start;-ms-flex-em-align:flex-start;align-self:flex-start;}</style><div size="large" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="23" class="align-center size-large embed css-d9wkvk e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Text, Snapshot, Wall, Standg, Photography, Hand, Room, Child, Wood, " tle="Photograph, Text, Snapshot, Wall, Standg, Photography, Hand, Room, Child, Wood, " loadg="lazy" width="640" height="447" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><style data-emotn="css 1gccgwy">@media(m-width: 20rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}@media(m-width: 90rem){{paddg-left:1rem;}}</style><div class="css-1gccgwy e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Lisa Fer and Brixton Smart Smh.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Lisa Fer.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="24" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LISA FEDER, </strong>CLASS OF ’86; ARTIST/MUSICIAN: Mark was David Bowie–ish. He was quiet, a b of a pretty boy, a b of a dandy, great hair. Brixton went after him hard. As soon as she saw him, she was like, “New hman.” He was datg Brix and Donna at the same time.</p><p data-no-id="25" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM, </strong>FROM THE ESSAY “ZELIG OF NOTORIETY”: Donna was among the first iends I ma at llege. . . . My roommate Mark and I helped her move an ancient and gigantic tnk om the matenance buildg to her room, as if she’d arrived Vermont on a steamship. She and I spoke across a temporal gap, none of her cultural referenc newer than J. M. Barrie, none of me olr than Foghorn Leghorn (the only southern accent I knew). I exaggerate. Donna was a transfer stunt [om the Universy of Mississippi], had enjoyed the mentorship of [wrers] Willie Morris and Barry Hannah. . . . [She] really uld nverse perfect wistful epigrams, seemgly poted at postery.</p><p data-no-id="26" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MARK NORRIS, </strong>CLASS OF ’86, DROPOUT; PHOTOGRAPHER: I uld quote T. S. Elt and so uld Donna. I thk that’s why we started up. We were a very brief thg. It was fished the first month of school. I wouldn’t even ll boyiend and girliend, bee we didn’t sleep together. We fondled around bed. It was jt— was a ltle weird.</p><style data-emotn="css 108o02t">{--data-embed-display:flex;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;}@media(m-width: 20rem){{clear:both;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{clear:both;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{width:50%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{width:50%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{width:50%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{width:45%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{width:45%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 90rem){{width:45%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:left;clear:left;}} a span{right:1rem;} img{width:to;height:85vh;} a{display:-webk-le-box;display:-webk-le-flex;display:-ms-le-flexbox;display:le-flex;posn:var(--posn, relative);} img:not(.ewcw41w1){display:block;width:100%;height:to;-webk-align-self:flex-start;-ms-flex-em-align:flex-start;align-self:flex-start;}</style><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="27" class="align-left size-medium embed css-108o02t e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Standg, Retro style, Pattern, Shoulr, Jot, Vtage clothg, Dign, Black-and-whe, Pattern, " tle="Photograph, Standg, Retro style, Pattern, Shoulr, Jot, Vtage clothg, Dign, Black-and-whe, Pattern, " loadg="lazy" width="698" height="1635" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><style data-emotn="css 78jldq">{paddg-left:0rem;}</style><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Donna Tartt as she appeared her senr year high school yearbook.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Collectn of Lili Anolik.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="28" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS: </strong>I met Donna through Jonathan that first week. She told this story about beg forced to go to home-enomics class at Ole Miss. All the girls had to go around the room and say how many children they wanted. When got to Donna, she said, “Well, I don’t really want to have a baby.” And there was this long silence, and the teacher looked at her and said, “Now, Donna, every woman wants to have a baby.” Donna’s hair was longer then than would be later, sort of down to the bottom of her neck. And I’d never seen ey as green as hers. Once, durg hman year, she ved me to a marti hour her dorm and she was wearg a black bro skirt-su and high heels, and smokg om a long, slenr cigarette holr—very feme, very elegant. She was myster.</p><p data-no-id="29" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN, </strong>CLASS OF ’83: Do you know “The Diamond as Big as the Rz” [a lh and sister fable by F. Stt Fzgerald about a Mississippi boy of most background who is sent east to boardg school and beiends the son of a fabuloly—and ightengly—rich man]? Donna was like the ma character that story, very nsc of beg om the South. She’d name some town Mississippi, as if we all knew where was—like, “I’m om East Bumfuck, and ’s jt outsi What’s-Your-Face”—and we’d all nod, jt to be pole, to not engage eper nversatn. Say, “Oh, ya don’t say? Sure is hot down there.”</p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="30" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90">"We were a ld group.... There were a lot of referenc to Get the Guts om <em>Who's Aaid of Virgia Woolf?</em> We'd go after people." —Amy Herskovz</blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="31" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>Before she died, my mother gave me a typewrer. I wrote a novel on when I was fifteen. It wasn’t any good, but jt gettg to the end was exhilaratg. From that pot on, I knew I was a wrer. My father’s a pater, though, and I’d gotten all my pats on the head for beg a ltle art prodigy. When I got to Benngton, everythg was so timidatg that I didn’t want to surrenr this su of armor. But I did manage to talk my way to Stephen Sandy’s poetry class. Donna was there too. We passed not. </p><p data-no-id="32" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>The only class I wanted to take was the nonfictn workshop tght by Joe McGniss, but wasn’t open to hmen. I gave him all the piec I’d wrten high school—journalism or, I gus, personal says. One was about my girliend who iated our relatnship and whose father was gay. Another was about this guy I was secretly seeg who was aggrsively straight and whose father was to relign. They were wrten the style of Joan Didn, ambiguo, nothg explaed ever. Not like, <em>My feelgs for Matt were plited. </em>Like, <em>Matt v me over. His parents aren’t home. He wants to go skny dippg. The Jacuzzi's turned on. We open a bottle. </em>I got a note back om Joe the next day sayg, “Let’s meet.” Not only was I the class—he was sendg my piec to his agent and his edor. I was lighted, but I was eaked out, too.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="33" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Dk, Employment, Whe-llar worker, Furnure, Room, Office equipment, Office, Photography, Typewrer, Stg, " tle="Dk, Employment, Whe-llar worker, Furnure, Room, Office equipment, Office, Photography, Typewrer, Stg, " loadg="lazy" width="1200" height="842" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Joe McGnis his home office.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Nancy Doherty.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="34" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>NANCY DOHERTY, </strong>WIDOW OF JOE MCGINNISS: I remember Joe readg Bret’s work and beg like, “Holy sh, this is credible.”</p><p data-no-id="35" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>In October, I turned a piece lled “Walkg Across the Lawn.” It starts out at Benngton, and ’s me wrg exactly what I see happeng—the sex people are havg, the dgs people are takg. Then, an alicized sectn, I’m meetg my parents at the bar of the Carlyle Hotel. My dad had jt sold the U.S. Steel Buildg for which his missn was somethg like forty ln dollars. He flourished the Reagan eighti, and sudnly he was spendg so lavishly. And he and mom were tryg to get back together and wasn’t workg. I wre, <em>I down three vodka-grapeu juic while my father’s checkg somethg the lobby</em>, blah, blah<em>. </em>Then ’s back at Benngton. There was a party where this guy spiked the punch wh MDMA and b a girl, Brixton, on the neck so badly she had to go to the firmary. I named nam, and the piece ed a sh storm. People were makg pi of and talkg about . I was hated, I was revered.<br /></p><p data-no-id="36" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ, </strong>CLASS OF ’85; CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER/PHILANTHROPIST: Bret and I met Joe McGniss’s workshop. My mom was bad, his dad was bad, and our childhoods were so wrapped up money and trma that we tomatilly bond. Bret was credibly shy then, almost socially phobic. I don’t know why. Well, he wasn’t out yet, probably didn’t want to be out yet. Also, he was a ln om home and his fay was fallg apart. He ed to scratch my wdow wh the new Stevie Nicks albums.</p><p data-no-id="37" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN, </strong>CLASS OF ’85; SINGER/ART-PARTY INSTIGATOR: There was a guy named Larry David. Not that Larry David-—another Larry David. And he was sort of pretty and sort of sulky and he did this thg where he’d toss his hair. He and Bret were really good iends, like BFFs. </p><p data-no-id="38" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>In hdsight, we were a ld group of people, though my head we were jt terrified. There were a lot of referenc to Get the Guts om <em>Who’s Aaid of Virgia Woolf? </em>We’d go after people.</p><p data-no-id="39" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS</strong>: Whenever you asked Bret how he was dog, he’d say, “Tense.” He was so sweet and vulnerable. He’d have the horrible panic attacks. One night, he lled his mother and said, “I n’t do this anymore. I need you.” She got on the red-eye and was at Benngton ten hours.</p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="40" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Black, Photograph, Stg, Black-and-whe, Monochrome, Photography, Monochrome photography, Room, Stock photography, Style, " tle="Black, Photograph, Stg, Black-and-whe, Monochrome, Photography, Monochrome photography, Room, Stock photography, Style, " loadg="lazy" width="2279" height="3039" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Bret Easton Ellis a iend’s dorm room.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Ian Gtler</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="41" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Lookg back, I realize I was popular. At eighteen, I had a handsomens, and I was kd of groomed, and I was kd of sexy, and I was undated wh date requts and people wantg to take my picture. But si I was a wreck. And I was alienated bee I was a wrer, bee I was gay. And then there was my crystal--meth addictn. In retrospect, ’s like, <em>Why were you so fuckg prsed? It was awome! </em>Still, people were throwg themselv at me. I had girliends, I had boyiends. I really got around.</p><p data-no-id="42" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>Bret’s roommate, Mil, was the son of a famo gallerist, Richard Bellamy, and had grown up the unterculture of the New York art world. I intified wh Mil, but I was more attracted to Bret. They didn’t get along. The room was divid half by a le of broken bottl. It was like a Berl Wall of broken glass.</p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="43" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90">"Back then, God help , was a badge of dishonor not to have slept wh your profsor."—Nicholas Delban</blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="44" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Two ls likely people to live together you n’t image. Outsi their room was a ltle hallway, and one of them was always sleepg there, Mil wh branch sometim. God, Mil was such a hippie. There was somethg transfixg about Bret’s space. He would cut out newspaper stori about plane crash. They papered his wall along wh <em>Interview </em>magaze vers. <em>Interview </em>was huge for . It was our style, what we aspired to.</p><p data-no-id="45" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MILES BELLAMY, </strong>CLASS OF 1986, DID NOT COMPLETE DEGREE; WRITER/BOOKSELLER: A month or two went by, and Bret and I realized that would be bt if he didn’t go on my si and I didn’t go on his. Ocsnally someone would shed blood on the glass, but not often.</p><p data-no-id="46" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>I thk about this a lot bee of #MeToo. I was hangg out wh a guy named Ciaran—nice-lookg guy, didn’t know him that well—at a Flg to Sprg party. A lot of the parti were mixed wh teachers and stunts bee teachers were fuckg stunts, stunts were fuckg teachers. A iend of me had a year-long affair wh his French teacher.[Edor’s note: The iend sists that this affair was wh his German teacher.] It was jt somethg that happened. Stephen Sandy me on to me and Ciaran, sayg his wife was away and that we should go back to his place and have a threome. Ciaran and I were lghg, and Ciaran jt said, “Let’s get out of here. There’s another party over there.” I said, “Yeah, maybe we n fd some dgs. Let’s go do that.”</p><p data-no-id="47" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>NICHOLAS DELBANCO, </strong>LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE FACULTY, 1966–85: Back then, God help , was a badge of dishonor not to have slept wh your profsor.</p><p data-no-id="48" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>When I got to Benngton, I had a starry-eyed feelg. People were velopg such eccentric ways, and so many profsors were enuragg that so strongly—this kd of willful self-formatn. It almost felt like a fishg school for people who wanted to fe an inty so that after graduatn they uld move to New York and knock the world ad some artistic venue or other. Brixton was a perfect example of this. She me to school Lra Salenger and renamed herself after a Clash song [“The Guns of Brixton”]. Only she didn’t wa to graduate before beg famo. </p><p data-no-id="49" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MAURA SPIEGEL: </strong>The stunts at Benngton weren’t driven by gras, but there was a weird rigor. You had this feelg that life was performance art, that everybody was livg his or her fantasy. I’m tryg to fd language to scribe the electricy that was there, the nce, the feelg of mystery and enchantment this ridiculoly pastoral settg. Stunts were full-blown this way that was very surprisg for such young kids.</p><div size="large" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="50" class="align-center size-large embed css-d9wkvk e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Room, Readg, Artist, " tle="Room, Readg, Artist, " loadg="lazy" width="1428" height="979" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-1gccgwy e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Jonathan Lethem his dorm room.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Mark Norris</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="51" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>There was the sense that people were playg drs-up, fakg until beme real. I saw the classics clique crossg Commons drsed up like they were at Oxford and I thought, <em>Oh, that’s what you’re makg yourself to.</em></p><p data-no-id="52" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN:</strong>When cy folk are transplanted to the woods of Vermont, they get slaphappy. Only then do three guys their daddi’ mpled sport ats appear to be Oxonians. In the fall of 1982, the Greek class nsisted of me, Pl McGlo, and Todd O’Neal.</p><p data-no-id="53" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Donna and I were set up on a bld date that fall by our roommat, who hated and thought we were uptight enough to hang out wh each other. So we’d have somethg to talk about, I put her mailbox a uple of stori I’d wrten that <em>Ls than Zero </em>would be based on. And she put me a story that wasn’t <em>The Secret History </em>but was somethg that ve. There was no murr, but was the world of <em>The Secret History, </em>that i, those characters—Cl Frericks and his classics stunts. </p><p data-no-id="54" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>NICHOLAS DELBANCO: </strong>A strange fellow, Cl Frericks. He dropped out of Harvard bee he refed to take the swim tt or somethg like that, but he was a genuely learned person, an todidact. Knew Lat, Greek, Japane. Punctil his self--prentatn. And he had an avant-gar prtg prs, que famo at the time, lled Banyan Prs. It published people like Gert Ste and the poet Jimmy Merrill, who’d been Cl’s lover early on.</p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="55" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Facial hair, Beard, Human, Motache, Se, Elr, Photography, T-shirt, Portra, Portra photography, " tle="Facial hair, Beard, Human, Motache, Se, Elr, Photography, T-shirt, Portra, Portra photography, " loadg="lazy" width="960" height="869" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Classics profsor Cl Frericks.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Todd O'Neal.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="56" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MAURA SPIEGEL: </strong>Cl was my advisor when I was a stunt at Benngton. I had an appotment wh him, and I was wag outsi his office. The door opened and out stepped this betiful young man wh curly blond hair. And the first thg I heard Cl say was “Not, do <em>only </em>what is necsary. Only <em>do </em>what is necsary.” And I jt thought, <em>What is gog on? </em>As my advisor, he had to wre the ltle ments to me, and he said I was a very telligent girl. I remember that the word <em>telligent </em>somehow had this negative qualy g om .</p><p data-no-id="57" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MILES BELLAMY</strong>: Has anyone scribed Cl’s office? No? Oh my God. Well, first of all, was hard to fd. It was Commons, at the top of this sort of secret stairse that was outsi the buildg and led only to his office. So you’d climb this tall flight of stairs, and walk , and there’d be the exquise flowers, Japane flowers—I don’t know how or where he got them— a vase, and everythg was polished, betiful. You’d s across om him, and he’d serve you tea, and you really felt like you were the ner sanctum.</p><p data-no-id="58" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MAURA SPIEGEL</strong>: You went to Cl’s office for lunch, and out would e this credible food, and you didn’t know how he’d prepared . You didn’t see , you didn’t smell , and then there was—a perfect soup, a perfect quiche. He was a b magil.</p><p data-no-id="59" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL</strong>: Cl wrote poetry, plays, but his great work of lerature was the journals. Bob Giroux at Farrar, Strs said—and this was the early sixti—“Jt brg me your journals. I’ll publish them.” Then Cl got ld feet bee he spoke very ndidly about everybody. Years later, he went back, and said, “Okay, now I’d like to publish them,” and Bob said, “The moment’s passed. Now who knows who Carl Van Vechten is?” The journals were glorly wrten and the next step beyond Prot.</p><p data-no-id="60" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AVIVA BOWER, </strong>CLASS OF ’87; FACULTY DEVELOPER: It’s a kd of crazy thg. Here’s this sgle, basilly closeted gay man who wrote poetry yet hadn’t been regnized the way his [Benngton] lleagu like Bernard Malamud and Stephen Sandy had, and he’s secretive, and he feels thgs eply. He created and occupied this very romantic world. And I thk he wanted to fd stunts who uld live that world wh him.</p><p data-no-id="61" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>When I went to terview wh Cl, his first qutn was “Have you ever had a job?” I said, “No.” And he said, “Good.” And then he said, “Have you ever been to a football game?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “Good.”</p><p data-no-id="62" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MAURA SPIEGEL</strong><strong>: </strong>Cl was closer wh his stunts than his lleagu. Cl certaly had a male followg. My unrstandg was that his class were about beg homosexual, and how to do wh granur and history and bety.</p><style data-emotn="css 116jaoo">{borr-left:0.4375rem solid #15263D;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;marg:0.625rem 0 0;paddg-left:1.25rem;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.125rem;le-height:1.5;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.125rem;le-height:1.5;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:1.125rem;le-height:1.5;}} b, strong{font-fay:her;font-weight:bold;} em, i{font-fay:her;font-style:alic;}</style><blockquote data-no-id="63" class="body-blockquote css-116jaoo et3p2gv0">THE BENNINGTON COURSE CATALOG 1982-84:<br /><br />Course tle: Corydon<br /><br />Instctor: Cl Frericks<br /><br />Dcriptn: Studi some of the classil texts of homosexual love… Only cintal nsiratn will be given to merely nrotic or glandular maniftatns, but the relatnship of iendship to love and of <em>agape </em>to <em>eros </em>will be one of the unrlyg ncerns. Sce will be one of the several prumptns of the urse that love between men is a unique experience and not merely a qutn of pronouns, some attentn will be given to how the fear of societal disapproval has produced a number of mangled and herent masterpiec.</blockquote><p data-no-id="64" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS: </strong>All I knew about Cl Frericks was that he was havg an affair wh his stunt, this good-lookg olr guy, very ser, very passnate about classics.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="65" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Snapshot, Portra, Art, Patg, Photography, " tle="Photograph, Snapshot, Portra, Art, Patg, Photography, " loadg="lazy" width="900" height="597" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Classics stunts Matt Jabson, Todd O’Neal, and Pl McGlo, all Class of 1983.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Matt Jabson.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="66" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>Donna was not part of our Greek tutorials. The urs she took wh Cl anyone who signed up uld take. Cl adored certa women, but he was also homosexual and had a very, let’s say, classil athetic or hierarchy, which priz malens and male bety. So Donna only knew him a limed way. She did, how-ever, know Pl McGlo, bee they were lovers. Now, Pl was a b eccentric, not a bad thg at Benngton—a virtue, fact. He wasn’t precisely a scholar, but he was drawn to a scholarly way of life. And Cl, I thk, embodied for him an image of what llege should be—Balll or All Souls 1843. Pl often ed Victorianisms when he spoke or wrote. I remember when he first mentned Donna. He said, “Who was that charmg southern girl the Homer class?” And Cl said, “You mean Donna Tartt? She’s the only tart I have wh three <em>t</em>’s.”</p><p data-no-id="67" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS</strong>: Speculatg on Donna and Pl’s relatnship was a Benngton pastime for years. Every Benngton person knows every timate tail about every other Benngton person, so to be a sexual enigma was an acplishment unique to her. As Ian Gtler said, “If flntg your sexualy is cheap, this school is a nstant closg sale.”</p><p data-no-id="68" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>Donna started wearg those mannish-cut blazers. She looked like a Mi-Me when she was hangg out wh .</p><p data-no-id="69" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>Pl and Donna weren’t boyiend and girliend. They were boyiend and boy. She had a uniform. Black loafers, khaki pants—boys’ pants, not girls’—J. Prs–type button-down, necktie, blue blazer wh brass buttons, and hair this funky ltle asexual bob. She looked like she me straight out of an English universy. She and Pl were like Oxonian homosexuals or somethg. I once asked him, “What kd of relatnship do you have?” And he said, “Well, that’s very funny, bee she wants me to ll her ‘my lad.’ ”</p><p data-no-id="70" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>LETTER TO JONATHAN LETHEM, DATED JANUARY 24, 1983 (DURING WINTER BREAK): I am now Washgton wh The Man [Pl McGlo]. We have a nice ltle apartment an old townhoe near Capol Hill and all is well. . . . The racit thg that’s happened to was when we overheard a mm guard the Natnal Gallery mutter, “More faggots” as we walked to the room. (I was wearg a baggy sweater and troers, no makp, and my ctomary shapels gray tweed at. Perhaps I did look like a boy. . . .) It pleased Pl no end.</p><p data-no-id="71" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>What was strange about Donna was that she was a Miss Buttsky wh our group. We all had girliends, and the girliends were like, “Well, that’s his world, and I’m not gog to be part of that.” Normal most relatnships. But she ma clear she wanted .</p><p data-no-id="72" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>Matt didn’t like Donna. I liked her to the gree that I knew her, but I found her evasive, a b imperable. And, of urse, Matt and Pl and I were all senrs. The tth is, I didn’t thk too eply about her until her book me out years later.<br /></p><p data-no-id="73" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>My disenchantment wh Benngton was fast. All my life, I’d existed a sort of bohemian bubble. I had the sane ia that I was privileged bee I was a New Yorker and went to repertory cema. That my parents were lower-middle class never registered. And then, all of a sudn, I was at school wh the shah of Iran’s dghter. So for me, Benngton, where I need a work-study job to survive, was this vlent nontatn wh the reali of money and class. Yet at the same time, Benngton was a playground I was allowed to play . The experience was bewilrg. And I rpond to the potential huiatns of not belongg by playg at belongg totally. I ran for stunt uncil as a hman and got on, though I was soon voted off for shirkg my duti. I also ran the film society, which I gave all the attentn I should have been givg my studi. Tishman Hall beme my ltle fiefdom.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="74" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="People, Cool, Fun, Grass, Tree, Headgear, Photography, Adaptatn, Outerwear, Recreatn, " tle="People, Cool, Fun, Grass, Tree, Headgear, Photography, Adaptatn, Outerwear, Recreatn, " loadg="lazy" width="1440" height="1005" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Jonathan Lethem (wearg p) on the Commons Lawn, wh dorms background.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Mark Norris</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="75" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MILES BELLAMY</strong>: Jonathan showed great movi. He even brought <em>Pull My Daisy </em>[1959 short film scripted by Jack Kerouac and featurg wrers and artists of the Beat perd]. My father was that one, played The Bishop.</p><p data-no-id="76" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>I got to know Jonathan bee my iend Larry David had a csh on him. The first time we met, we were talkg about Robert Altman movi. I’ll never fet the look on his face when I discsed the mers of <em>Health, A Perfect Couple, Qutet, </em>whatever, bee he’d been so breezily nfint of his Robert Altman knowledge and I knew so much more.</p><p data-no-id="77" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>It was like an adult talkg to a child. I was like, “Oh, Robert Altman’s ol.” What I meant was that I’d seen <em>Nashville. </em>Bret had opns on Altman’s whole ovre—the overrated on, unrrated on. He gave me a good pocket gui to seventi Altman, and was jt off the top of his head.</p><hr data-no-id="78" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="79" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">WINTER BREAK, 1982-83</h2><p data-no-id="80" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LISA FEDER: </strong>Benngton had somethg lled NRT, Non-Rint Term. The school uldn’t afford to heat self durg the wter and so shut down. You went out to the world and got an ternship or job. I spent my hman NRT at the swchboard at the Unn Square Barn & Noble. That’s where all the Benngton punk rockers worked.</p><p data-no-id="81" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS, </strong>LETTER TO JOE MCGINNISS, JANUARY 1983: If I do not get a job over NRT, I am gog to go ahead wh an pennt work-study project, which will take the form of a novel . . . tentatively tled <em>Ls than Zero, </em>a bleak, self-absorbed tle if there ever was one.</p><p data-no-id="82" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MARK NORRIS: </strong>The only time Bret and I really hung out was L. A. over that wter break [when <em>Ls than Zero </em>is set]. He ved me to a party his high school girliend had. It was horrible. It was at a mansn Beverly Hills, and there were black waers and kids gettg dnk while their parents sipped cktails by the pool. . . . Brixton and I had broken up before I left Benngton bee I was sure she was seeg another guy. That’s when she told me she’d had an abortn. She didn’t even tell me she was pregnant. Jt said somethg like, “I killed your child.”</p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="83" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Black-and-whe, Snapshot, Monochrome, Photography, Stg, Bicycle, Vehicle, Stock photography, Monochrome photography, " tle="Photograph, Black-and-whe, Snapshot, Monochrome, Photography, Stg, Bicycle, Vehicle, Stock photography, Monochrome photography, " loadg="lazy" width="1993" height="3000" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Mark Norris at Benngton.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Ian Gtler.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="84" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS, </strong>FROM <em>LESS THAN ZERO: </em>Daniel also thks that Vann, a girl he saw at school . . . is pregnant. . . . [He] got this letter om her a uple of days ago and he tells me that Vann might not be g back; that she might be startg a punk-rock group New York lled the Spir’s Web . . . that might or might not be Daniel’s kid. . . . He says that the letter wasn’t too clear.</p><p data-no-id="85" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRIXTON SMITH START: </strong>I left school December. There were mors about me beg pregnant, which I was, wh Mark Norris’s baby. It uld have been one or two others’, but I’m pretty sure was Mark’s. Anyway, I knew mic was my sty, and I was ready to do for real.</p><p data-no-id="86" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>IAN GITTLER: </strong>Brixton asked me to give her bass lsons. A week later, she’d learned her lson and wrten eleven songs. Three months later, she’d dropped out of llege, married Mark E. Smh [lead sger and songwrer of the Fall], and joed his band. Soon after that, Robert Palmer was wrg her up the <em>Tim.</em><em></em><br /></p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="87" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90">“Everyone realized, ‘Oh, Donna’s the bt wrer the workshop.’ Her stori were so polished. It was kd of unfair.” —Bret Easton Ellis</blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="88" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>My dad was an angry, abive person. It seemed so ngo, the sry fay drama the midst of this betiful southern California settg. Then I disvered Joan Didn, and I was gettg so many of my cu om her. <em>Ls than Zero </em>started out very journalistic, almost like diary entri. It was about experiencg L. A. as an adolcent the early eighti. There was a psimism the cy at that time—the aftermath of Watergate, of Vietnam—but was an excg psimism, a thrillg psimism. You saw everywhere if you were lookg for , books, movi, and fely punk bands. This ia of numbns, of lookg at thgs a flat, ntral, almost banal way, seemed to be the stance people were takg. I didn’t know where was leadg, but was certaly wh me when I was wrg that first draft of <em>Ls than Zero </em> the wter of ’83.<br /></p><hr data-no-id="89" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="90" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">SPRING SEMESTER, 1983</h2><p data-no-id="91" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>In the middle of my hman year, I started a novel sted to end up a sk drawer lled <em>Ap the Plan</em>, a Devo lyric. I ntued to take art urs, but I was nng back to my room to wre. I didn’t clare myself to my teachers or even to my classmat, except a few, like Jill [Eisenstadt] and Donna. Probably I was timidated by Bret and buried around him. But I was vtigatg the wrg that was gog on. I went to the readgs and the parti. I sat at Bernard Malamud’s feet when he gave one of his rare talks. I was like a spy.</p><p data-no-id="92" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Nick Delban was head of the lerature partment, so Joe mt have said somethg to him about me and he wanted to know who this kid was. He really took me unr his wg. I went to parti at his hoe. I was the star of his fictn workshop. Nick was a Harvard guy, macho, very much a man of letters. Girls loved him. He ed to go out wh Carly Simon.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="93" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Stg, Photography, Grass, Tree, Black-and-whe, " tle="Photograph, Stg, Photography, Grass, Tree, Black-and-whe, " loadg="lazy" width="2672" height="1982" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Fictn profsor Nick Delban wh a stunt.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Steven Albahari/Benngton College.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="94" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ:</strong> The mor was that “You’re So Va” was about Nick. [Edor’s note: The song mostly wasn’t, was mostly about Warren Beatty, as Simon revealed a 2015 terview. But partly was. The “aprit srf” referenced the lyrics was a Delban accsory.]</p><p data-no-id="95" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>NICHOLAS DELBANCO: </strong>It was clear om the get-go that Bret was special. Jill was also that class, and she was very good, very smart, and, briefly, our babyster.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="96" class="align-left size-medium embed css-108o02t e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Hair, Face, Hairstyle, Nose, Eyebrow, Selfie, Friendship, Head, Cool, Bety, " tle="Hair, Face, Hairstyle, Nose, Eyebrow, Selfie, Friendship, Head, Cool, Bety, " loadg="lazy" width="4032" height="3024" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Jill Eisenstadt, future thor of "From Rockaway."</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">TK</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="97" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>That sprg I also took a workshop wh Arturo Vivante. Arturo was an Italian, <em>The New Yorker </em>a lot, lovely, a b out of , flirted wh all the girls. I parodied him <em>The Rul of Attractn </em>[Ellis’s send novel, about the liv and lov of stunts at the very Benngton-like Camn College]<em>. </em>Jill was there, and Donna. Donna hand a story lled “Assasss.” That was the moment everyone realized, “Oh, she’s the bt wrer the workshop.” Her stori were so polished, so much better than anythg else. It was kd of unfair.</p><p data-no-id="98" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LAWRENCE “LARRY” DAVID, </strong>CLASS OF ’85; WRITER/EDITOR: There were people workshop who stood out—Bret and Donna. Jill was also very distctive. I’m not gog to say Bret and Donna weren’t tryg to fd their way, but they were more formed than many of were. I wasn’t sure what I should be exprsg. <em>Is okay to wre about this? Is not okay? How mimalist should I be? </em>You know, all the thgs you fumble around wh. They had a nfince, a sense of voice. Arturo adored Donna.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="99" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Tree, Fun, Pla, Recreatn, Soil, Play, " tle="Tree, Fun, Pla, Recreatn, Soil, Play, " loadg="lazy" width="2768" height="1821" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Jonathan Lethem and Donna Tartt on the Commons Lawn, wh "The End of the World" behd them.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Mark Norris.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="100" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM, </strong>FROM “ZELIG OF NOTORIETY”: Wh [Donna], as wh others . . . I passed through a dazzlgly quick timacy, to vlent disagreement, then silence. What pels me now is that each of the s the iend was another like myself, a fancial--aid se there, strand among the heirs to var Amerin fortun. . . . In iendship Donna had a rarefied talent for secrecy and fantasy, exactly as her books suggt… I relished sharg [her] trancelike ra until the star of our iendship sudnly fell.</p><p data-no-id="101" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Donna seemed like a very private person, and bracketed by etiquette. This wasn’t te of the stori she was wrg workshop, where there was a real elegance yet phg up agast boundari and fas. Another thg I remember about her workshop stori: Back then you’d type out your story, then Xerox for the class, and if you uldn’t afford to Xerox, you’d mimeograph. Donna mimeographed.</p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="102" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90">“Benngton was crawlg wh self-fed hipsters and so many ways, was ial for me.” —Jonathan Lethem</blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="103" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>Donna had the what she lled “tea parti.” You know, llege-girl salons. She left vatns my box. Never went, though.</p><p data-no-id="104" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>The tea parti weren’t really my style, but I’d go sometim. She had a bet wh liquor . She was ty, yet she uld drk everyone unr the table. I always felt Donna was very ntaed, very theatril. It was hard to get a real sense of her.</p><p data-no-id="105" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM</strong>: Bret and Donna and Brixton were obv exampl of people who attracted notice and fascatn. But my send semter girliend, Madi Horstman, was like that, too. She was a pater and so dynamic and funny and took up so much wonrful space. She was a year ahead of me, and I uldn’t believe when I got her attentn. It was like, “Wow, I’m Madi Horstman’s arm ndy.”</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="106" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Arm, Shoulr, Fun, Fger, Forehead, Summer, Leg, Hand, Cool, Cht, " tle="Arm, Shoulr, Fun, Fger, Forehead, Summer, Leg, Hand, Cool, Cht, " loadg="lazy" width="604" height="429" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Madi Horstman.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Madi Horstman.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="107" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MADI HORSTMAN </strong>(<em>class of ’85; artist</em>): Donna and this guy Reggie [Regald Shepherd, class of ’88; poet] were really, really tight. I didn’t know if Donna was terted Jonathan or what—he was que romantic—but somehow my bicycle wound up at the bottom of the pond. Somebody threw there. I was thkg was Reggie actg on Donna’s behalf. But Donna fave me everythg. I thought she was sweet.</p><p data-no-id="108" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS</strong>: When Donna prented her story about Elvis gog to hell—that was a real moment. It was like, not only n she wre well, she’s funny, which isn’t what you thk of Donna as beg.</p><p data-no-id="109" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM</strong>: Madi had a ze lled <em>Madi’s Mail Club</em>. Z were a very New York downtown art kid thg to do, kd of like the Inter before the Inter. Madi sent out Donna’s “Elvis Hell” story a bright red booklet wh her drawg on the ver.</p><p data-no-id="110" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MADI HORSTMAN</strong>: Yep, I was Donna’s first publisher.<strong><br /></strong></p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="111" class="align-left size-medium embed css-108o02t e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Text, Font, Illtratn, Book ver, Fictn, Paper, Novel, Art, " tle="Text, Font, Illtratn, Book ver, Fictn, Paper, Novel, Art, " loadg="lazy" width="3024" height="4032" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Donna Tartt’s first published story, wh ver art by Steve Carter.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Lili Anolik.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="112" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>So the story I told my novel <em>Fortrs of Solu </em>where the protagonist accintally imprisons a llege cleang lady the bathroom bee she’s aaid to e out bee a dg party has started—that is 100 percent documentary. The tth n now be told. Y, I alt at Benngton once or twice. Why wouldn’t you al at Benngton? When you went to New York, you’d e back wh dgs. If you were terted gettg high, then you uld eher be spendg money or llectg money. To anyone who wasn’t at the maximum level of tst-fund oblivns would seem axmatic that alg was the better bis, there were legends around the school’s abily to protect stunt alers.</p><hr data-no-id="113" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="114" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">1983–84 SCHOOL YEAR</h2><p data-no-id="115" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>Benngton was crawlg wh self-fed hipsters and artists. In so many ways, was the ial settg for me. But I uldn’t see that. I projected onto the school all the unfair privileg of the art world, rich people buyg each other reers and all that. Really, was my father’s gdge that I took on as my own. By the end of my hman year, I was full of surly-outsir rentment. I cid to take off the fall semter and go back to New York.</p><p data-no-id="116" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>LETTER TO WILLIE MORRIS, DATED OCTOBER 14, 1983: My ar Willie. . . . Am currently takg a term om school; partly bee I need a rt, partly bee I need time to wre and to study, and partly bee Cl Frericks, the faculty member who I do most of my work Lerature wh, is away on Sabbatil… Don’t image that I’m beg a scholar, though . . . I’m spendg most of my time wrg. I have begun a novel, and that occupi my days and nights pretty well.</p><p data-no-id="117" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>In the fall of ’83, I was distracted bee I was wrg <em>Ls than Zero </em>and livg out <em>The Rul of Attractn</em>. My suatn wh Phil Holm was tortured, but not at first. At first was wonrful. It was one of those thgs where you meet someone and you go off together and you don’t talk to anybody else for months.</p><p data-no-id="118" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS: </strong>Phil always wore a black leather jacket and black jeans and boots, and he ro a motorcycle. He was a quiet guy, very ward. Everyone noticed that Phil and Bret were nstantly together, and speculatn ran rampant. Phil did seem and claim to be heterosexual, but for a mere iendship was so tensive.</p><p data-no-id="119" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Bret and I were separable. He was romantic wh me. And he was forever makg pass, and I’d do that girl thg where I’d pretend I was passed out. He told everyone we were datg. I don’t thk we were ever datg. But I’m like, “I n be whatever you want me to be. I don’t re.”</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="120" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="People, Fun, Stg, Fay, " tle="People, Fun, Stg, Fay, " loadg="lazy" width="640" height="480" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Lawrence "Larry" David, Bret Easton, Ellis, and Amy Herskovz.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Amy Herskovz.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="121" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN: </strong>I thk ’s important to Bret to appear super normal, like he’s a regular guy, and then, of urse, we know all the lurid thgs are gog on. He was, I gus you’d ll flexible, those days. Really, though, he’s a guy person. He and Amy were a uple, but she’s the one who told me, “A gay man is no iend to a woman.”</p><p data-no-id="122" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LAWRENCE “LARRY” DAVID</strong>: Sayg that Bret is ventive is a kd way of sayg that Bret li. He’d make up somethg on the spot that had no basis realy. Once, out of the blue, he said, “Larry has a chicken named Polka Dot.” And I went along wh . I told this long backstory about Polka Dot, how was Shabbat at my parent’s hoe, and my parents cid not to kill the chicken for dner, and then beme my pet. For years people believed this about me. <em>I </em>almost believed about me. That was Bret lyg to be funny, but sometim he’d lie jt bee he liked havg one over on someone.</p><p data-no-id="123" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Over NRT, when I looked at the hundreds of pag I was gog to cull om to put <em>Ls than Zero </em>together, I got ld feet. Everythg Joe loved about my stuff, I didn’t tst. I was thkg, <em>I’m gog to wre what most people wre. I’m gog to be nventnal</em>. I did a versn of the book that was the past tense, third person. I prented to Joe, and he was like, “What is this? What have you done? You’ve ma so generic.” I was hurt a ltle b but not enough to make any difference. I put back the prent tense, first person, and fat jt started meltg away. What had been a four-hundred-page book beme a very ncise two-hundred-page book. Joe was extremely relieved and said, “I’m now gog to send this to Man Entrek [edor at Simon & Schter].”</p><p data-no-id="124" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DAVID LIPSKY, </strong>CLASS OF ’87, TRANSFERRED TO BROWN SOPHOMORE YEAR; WRITER: Bret me to fd me after wter break bee I was the send person to get to Nick Delban’s workshop as a hman. The first was him. It was thrillg to meet Bret. He was the only person I knew who was my age and loved books and was tryg to figure out how to wre them. Bret was ol, magic. But I looked at him and thought, <em>I like this person and I am never gog to unrstand this person.</em><br /></p><p data-no-id="125" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LAWRENCE “LARRY” DAVID: </strong>You know what was weird about David? He was so normal. He didn’t belong at Benngton.</p><p data-no-id="126" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JILL EISENSTADT, </strong>CLASS OF ’85; WRITER: The first le of one of David’s stori was, “Enterg her was like enterg Harvard.” We ma fun of , but the fact that ’s stuck my md all the years shows that ’s actually good.<br /></p><style data-emotn="css 1mtk2uq">{--data-embed-display:flex;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;}@media(m-width: 20rem){{clear:both;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{clear:both;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{width:70%;marg-left:1rem;marg-right:0rem;float:right;clear:right;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{width:70%;marg-left:1rem;marg-right:0rem;float:right;clear:right;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{width:60%;marg-left:1rem;marg-right:0rem;float:right;clear:right;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{width:60%;marg-left:1rem;marg-right:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:right;clear:right;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{width:60%;marg-left:1rem;marg-right:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:right;clear:right;}}@media(m-width: 90rem){{width:60%;marg-left:1rem;marg-right:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:right;clear:right;}} a span{right:1rem;} img{width:to;height:85vh;} a{display:-webk-le-box;display:-webk-le-flex;display:-ms-le-flexbox;display:le-flex;posn:var(--posn, relative);} img:not(.ewcw41w1){display:block;width:100%;height:to;-webk-align-self:flex-start;-ms-flex-em-align:flex-start;align-self:flex-start;}</style><div size="large" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="127" class="align-right size-large embed css-1mtk2uq e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Forehead, Hairstyle, Cool, Photography, Retro style, Jaw, Se, Portra, " tle="Photograph, Forehead, Hairstyle, Cool, Photography, Retro style, Jaw, Se, Portra, " loadg="lazy" width="680" height="980" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">David Lipsky after transferrg to Brown.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of David Lipsky.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="128" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DAVID LIPSKY: </strong>Bret had me meet Donna. He said to her, “David’s a good rear. You should show him your book.” It was <em>The Secret History, </em>only was lled <em>God of Illns </em>then. She had about eighty pag wrten. She was very pale, super shy, clearly red only about dog this work. I liked her.</p><p data-no-id="129" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>The book was perfectly formed. The wrg was perfect. The only note I ever gave Donna was “You have a llege-age male protagonist who’s not noticg women or men or anythg. That’s unrealistic.” I will never fet her exprsn. Donna has a stare, okay? She stared at me. Silent, starg daggers.</p><p data-no-id="130" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DAVID LIPSKY: </strong>Bret wanted to e off doomed and unfoced the way of Maria <em>Play It as It Lays </em>[the Joan Didn novel]<em>. </em>Yet however sual he seemed, he was discipled as a wrer. He read and worked like crazy. He wasn’t a grd about gras, but he was a grd about beg an artist. Once we were talkg about fictn, and he said a thg that disturbed me. He said, “Look, everythg’s been tried already. The domtic edy that you like has been tried. The stream-of-nscns novel has been tried. The Pynchon phantasmagoria has been tried. There’s one thg that hasn’t been done yet and that’s sensatnalism, and that’s what I’m gog to do.” He already unrstood where the culture was gog and what his job was gog to be.</p><p data-no-id="131" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong><em>Ls than Zero </em>was accepted by Simon & Schter April. I dited to Joe, and I know Nick was a b peeved. I was standg near the Barn, where the faculty offic were, talkg to Joe, and we saw Nick’s Jaguar, or whatever Nick drove, and Nick spotted me through the wdshield and then revved the enge. Teasg, but I uld tell he wasn’t.</p><p data-no-id="132" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MORGAN ENTREKIN, </strong>EDITOR: What you did at S&S those days was circulate the mancript. Herman Gollob was a senr edor, and he wrote on the sheet for <em>Ls than Zero, </em>“If there’s a market for llow agmentary fictn about rich self--dulgent ke-sniffg ck-suckg zombi, then let’s buy .” Then he said to me, “But if we do, ’s time for me to rign.” He was kiddg about rigng. His opn about the mancript, though, that was not ironic. </p><p data-no-id="133" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DAVID LIPSKY: </strong>Bret showed me the book, and I said, “If you publish this, ten years om now you’ll be embarrassed.” Well, he published , and I was embarrassed. See, I thought Bret would get viewed not as a wrer, but as a mentator on the sorry state of thgs today. After that, Bret and I stopped beg iends. Next year, when I was at Brown, a story of me was gog to n <em>The New Yorker</em>, the school paper did a piece on me. Bret said all this shty stuff and I was like, What the fuck?</p><p data-no-id="134" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong><em>THE BROWN DAILY HERALD</em></strong>, “Lipsky Sells a Story,” 11/1/85: Ellis se no randomns Lipsky’s <em>New Yorker </em>appeal: “His work is perfect for <em>The New Yorker</em>,” he says, bee Lipsky specializ “very safe, <em>New Yorker </em>sorts of stori… They’re extremely nservative… middle-class Connecticut angst.”</p><p data-no-id="135" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DAVID LIPSKY</strong>: I gus he was still mad at me.</p><p data-no-id="136" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>It’s impossible to talk about my gog to Benngton whout talkg about the fact that I was droppg out as soon as I arrived. I told myself I was leavg to fish my novel, that I’d work ed bookstor, publish shabby paperbacks like my hero Philip K. Dick, and then get disvered at 50 and be vdited. So part of my droppg out sophomore year was bravery and arrogance. The other part was ego failure. It was plited for me that Bret was publishg so early. Y, he reprented the Benngton nflatn of privilege and fame that I found so problematic, but he was also so acplished. Here I was jt warmg up to this procs and he’d blown off the top of the chart. That had me back-peddlg om Benngton, too.</p><p data-no-id="137" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MADI HORSTMAN</strong>: I stayed on mp that summer bee I was behd one cred. Jonathan had dropped out but he hadn’t left for Berkeley yet and he was livg wh me bee why not? Bret and Donna and Jill were also there, and this olr guy who wrote science fictn, and they were all the workshops. Everyone got published, except I’m not sure about the science fictn guy. Jonathan and I cid to shave our heads. This was before Sead O’Connor did . Sead saw on St. Marks Place and stole the ia.</p><p data-no-id="138" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM</strong>: I seem to rell Bret puttg a bald uple the backdrop of one of his llege scen.</p><p data-no-id="139" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS</strong>: The summer of ’84 is when I falized <em>Ls Than Zero</em>. That’s the last time I touched , my room Bgham.</p><hr data-no-id="140" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="141" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">1984–85 SCHOOL YEAR</h2><p data-no-id="142" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Joan Didn’s dghter, Qutana, me to Benngton that fall. The stunt-body print was a good iend of me and one of the few women I’ve had sex wh, jt so you know. She was also the mp ke aler. She was a Didn fanatic like me. We kidnapped Qutana her first night on mp. We offered her dgs, then sat around and talked. Joan Rivers’s dghter was also at Benngton that fall [Melissa Rivers was tourg lleg as a prospective stunt], and a bunch of people me lookg for Qutana thkg she was the other Joan’s dghter. My iend and I bombard her wh qutns about her mom, and she asked qutns about Benngton. It was all very chatty.</p><p data-no-id="143" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><p data-no-id="144" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="145" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Snapshot, Photography, Se, Photo ptn, " tle="Photograph, Snapshot, Photography, Se, Photo ptn, " loadg="lazy" width="982" height="1412" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Qutana Roo Dunne, wh Chris Boscia, at a Benngton party.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Chris Boscia.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="146" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>I heard Bret stole Qutana’s unrwear that night.</p><p data-no-id="147" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Amy says I took Qutana’s unrwear? Yeah, that sounds vaguely, vaguely faiar.</p><p data-no-id="148" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LAWRENCE “LARRY” DAVID:</strong> I don’t remember Bret stealg Qutana’s unrwear, but I do remember someone givg Bret someone else’s unrwear. There was a guy named Trey that Bret had a csh on. This girl who had a csh on Bret somehow got a pair of Trey’s unrwear and gave them to Bret as a gift.</p><p data-no-id="149" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN</strong>: Bret and I were a band together, The Parents. The Parents were New Wave-y and pop-y and a ltle mean-spired.</p><p data-no-id="150" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATTHEW WEISS </strong>(class of ’87; wrer): Bret was our keyboard player. He wrote one great song lled “Young and Pretent,” which is very Bret.</p><p data-no-id="151" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN: </strong>My one weird Bret memory is the electn party he had his room. We watched as Reagan won aga and we were shocked even though we probably shouldn’t have been. Everythg immediately started to change. The drkg age went om 18 to 21. And, all of a sudn, the police were everywhere, searchg you, even Vermont. We were jt a bunch of rich kids partyg, but we knew we were the soup.</p><p data-no-id="152" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SYDNEY COOPER, </strong>CLASS OF ’88; ARTIST: I lived Frankl, same hoe as Donna. I don’t thk I ever saw her walkg around mp. Her movements were always furtive, secretive. But we had the thgs lled Coffee Hoe on Sunday evengs, and she would always be there, drsed impecbly. I thk she was already clear about what she was gog to do next, wh her telligence, her w, her gifts. And she knew she was gog to marry her boyiend [Pl McGlo]—or thought she knew she was gog to marry him. She was, a way, posng herself.</p><p data-no-id="153" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong><em>Ls than Zero </em>me out at the end of my junr year. There was no money for ads. The first prtg was 5,000. It was jt gog to be this ltle book that did whatever did. Then, maybe two weeks before the end of term, <em>The Village Voice </em>ran this giant review by Elt Fremont-Smh. That was the begng and the endg of somethg. It was like, Oh my God, this uld happen.</p><p data-no-id="154" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="155" class="align-left size-medium embed css-108o02t e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Eyewear, Green, Glass, Sunglass, Personal protective equipment, Visn re, " tle="Eyewear, Green, Glass, Sunglass, Personal protective equipment, Visn re, " loadg="lazy" width="905" height="1117" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="156" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JAY McINERNEY, </strong>WRITER: Man Entrek gave me a galley of <em>Ls than Zero, </em>and I listened to his spiel about how he was gog to promote as the Wt Coast versn of <em>Bright Lights, Big Cy. </em>Wh six months of <em>Bright Lights</em>’ publitn, my life was sane. I went om beg a grad stunt to havg paparazzi mpg on my doorstep. I realized what was happeng to me was gog to happen to Bret.</p><p data-no-id="157" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRAD GOOCH, WRITER:</strong> I loved <em>Ls Than Zero</em>. It had a feel for the timbre of teenage boys’ voic. It was like Holn Clfield updated and moved to L.A. And Bret’s wrg had a screen-y-ns to —the sheen and distance, the rapidy of the chang—so that readg was like watchg on screen. That’s what mak the book seem so morn, still. Movi now are antiquated, but the screen, the screen isn’t.</p><p data-no-id="158" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>NICHOLAS DELBANCO: </strong>I was ser about attendance for my workshops. You showed up, and if you didn’t, you failed. I remember Bret, at the height of his early fame, beg driven up by a limo om the <em>Today </em>show and pourg himself to class wh one mute to go. It was que crazy and que fun.</p><p data-no-id="159" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Did Bret tell you he spent all his money on Cristal? He was so young, he had no ia what to do.</p><p data-no-id="160" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JILL EISENSTADT</strong>: Donna had an ternship at <em>The Atlantic </em>and showed an edor there part of her mancript, and he said, “This’ll never get published. You should stop right now.” Bret nvced her to show to Joe. Joe helped so many of . I’d done all the stori about where I’m om, about Rockaway, and he said, “You n turn the to a novel,” and then he showed me how I might go about nnectg them. I wasn’t even at Benngton at that pot, I was grad school. And when Simon & Schter offered me $5,000 for the book [<em>From Rockaway</em>], he said, “Don’t agree to anythg until you get an agent.” Later, Joe’s agent, Mort Janklow, got Knopf to pay $20,000.</p><p data-no-id="161" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>LETTER TO JOE MCGINNISS, DATED JULY 3, 1985: Dear Mr. McGniss: Thank you so much for takg the time to read my novel. . . . I’m <u>very</u> happy you liked  . . . enuragement, I thk, is the bt of all gifts… I am takg a leave of absence om Benngton next fall. . . . I have seven empty months ahead, and I am gog to do nothg but wre like a fiend.</p><hr data-no-id="162" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="163" class="body-h12 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">1985–86 SCHOOL YEAR, GRADUATION</h2><p data-no-id="164" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>My Benngton reer is jt so distend and awkward. Okay, so I was livg California, but I was love wh a girl at Benngton, San Goldman, and I end up g back and stayg wh San for much of what would have been my senr year. I was wrg my novel her dorm room and sneakg to the dg hall.</p><p data-no-id="165" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SYDNEY COOPER</strong>: Jonathan was livg San’s room? That’s perfect and mak sense, bee when I’ve heard him talk about Benngton, I’ve thought, <em>No way were you only there for a year or two</em>.</p><p data-no-id="166" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Returng to mp September was tricky. This book I’d wrten, which felt highly personal to me, had somehow bee a natnal bt-seller and cultural touchstone. The movie rights had sold. My iends were olr and they were gone. And didn’t help that seemed like every day journalists and photographers were g to mp to see me. No teacher would let me to a workshop. I was this eak. I realized didn’t matter if I went to class. I started <em>The Rul of Attractn. </em>It was a very lonely year.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="167" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Eyewear, Hair, Face, Glass, Sunglass, Cool, Hairstyle, Ch, Visn re, Forehead, " tle="Eyewear, Hair, Face, Glass, Sunglass, Cool, Hairstyle, Ch, Visn re, Forehead, " loadg="lazy" width="640" height="480" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Wrg profsor Mra Spiegel.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Mra Spiegel.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="168" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MAURA SPIEGEL: </strong>I did a tutorial wh Bret his senr year. I said to him—and I thk this was about <em>The Rul of Attractn</em>—“Bret, the characters aren’t g alive for me. Like this scene wh this woman character; now, would your iend so-and-so behave like this?” And he said, “That is so-and-so. That is how she behaved.”</p><p data-no-id="169" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JAMES ROBISON, </strong>WRITER, <strong></strong>TEACHER AT BENNINGTON SUMMER WORKSHOP, 1983-89:<em> </em>A girl me to me cryg bee Bret had clud her dialogue and love life a story. She said, “Can he jt <em>do </em>t<em></em>hat? Make him stop!”</p><p data-no-id="170" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>PAULA POWERS: </strong>I was at Oxford for my junr year, and durg that time Bret beme famo. When I me back, he always had this crew of young men around him. They were fans, but he kd of liked them, too, you know?</p><p data-no-id="171" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LAWRENCE “LARRY” DAVID: </strong>I have to say, Bret was very good at gettg straight guys to sleep wh him. They all wanted to be wrers, and he was very charmg. So he uld nvce them to, like, give a try.</p><p data-no-id="172" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>MTV ved me and Jay to the Vio Mic Awards September. I started spendg more time New York.</p><p data-no-id="173" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>LAWRENCE “LARRY” DAVID: </strong>It wasn’t easy to stay ntact back then. Bret didn’t have a phone his dorm room. We’d wre letters back and forth every once a while, and that was . But he’d vis New York, and he was havg parti at Limelight, and beg wrten up, so I’d be keepg up wh him by readg about him newspapers and magaz. That was pretty strange.</p><p data-no-id="174" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Bret would get a room at the Carlyle. We’d drk, do a sh ton of dgs, go to clubs. We were wild and out of ntrol. We’d be the youngt people all the plac. Bret uld get anywhere. </p><p data-no-id="175" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>IAN GITTLER</strong>: When Bret’s dad me to New York, he’d always stay at the Carlyle, get an apartment on one of the top floors wh a grand piano . Bret sold his book and he started havg the dners and parti at the Carlyle. We went there wh his dad, and they were like, “Good eveng, Mr. Ellis,” and they were talkg to Bret. So the ti had really turned as far as who their valued ctomer was.</p><p data-no-id="176" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="177" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Strg stment, Mil stment, Performance, Plucked strg stments, Mician, Cloud, Mic, Black-and-whe, Photography, Monochrome, " tle="Strg stment, Mil stment, Performance, Plucked strg stments, Mician, Cloud, Mic, Black-and-whe, Photography, Monochrome, " loadg="lazy" width="640" height="480" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Ian Gtler.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Amy Herskovz.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="178" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>We’d see his dad the cy. His dad was a big guy, very mascule, bloated, but likable a way. He’d rent a limo and want to get dnk and high, go out. He was vlently shamg of Bret. There was this time when a woman—young, our age—gave Bret’s dad head unr the table at a club ont of Bret. It was so wrong. It was bad for Bret, bad for Bret’s dad, bad for the girl.</p><p data-no-id="179" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>S<strong></strong>prg semter, I failed a uple class, cludg Cl’s “The Tale of Genji.” There was a lot of “Should Bret graduate?” talk. I did, and wh my class. Donna gave the speech.</p><p data-no-id="180" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>COMMENCEMENT SPEECH: There is a time everyone’s youth when character is fixed forever; for me, and I believe for most of here, our Benngton years were that time.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="181" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="People, Crowd, Event, Monochrome, History, Black-and-whe, Style, " tle="People, Crowd, Event, Monochrome, History, Black-and-whe, Style, " loadg="lazy" width="2048" height="1396" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Bret Easton Ellis at Benngton graduatn ceremony, 1986.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Benngton College.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="182" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>I was actually at the graduatn that would’ve been my graduatn bee was San’s graduatn. I was like Huck Fn at his own funeral.</p><p data-no-id="183" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Bret’s dad ma a pass at me at the ceremony. I was horrified on Bret’s behalf. Image Bret havg to live wh his dad dog this to someone everyone thought was his girliend. </p><p data-no-id="184" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN: </strong>In New York the eighti, Andy Warhol led. If you were at the right party, the party you were supposed to be at, then Andy was there. I ro the elevator wh him to Bret’s graduatn party at the Carlyle. Him and Keh [Harg] and an olr supermol—Lren Hutton. The party was fabulo and amazg. Everybody was trashed.</p><p data-no-id="185" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>ANDY WARHOL, </strong>FROM THE <em>DIARIES,</em>ENTRY FOR JUNE 16, 1986: I cid to go… to the Carlyle for a party for the Ellis kid who wrote <em>Ls than Zero.</em> <em>.</em> <em>.</em> <em>.</em> It was such a cute party. All the kids had the right fashnable hair and the right fashnable cloth.</p><p data-no-id="186" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>CHRIS BOSCIA,</strong> CLASS OF '87; ACTOR/CHEF: I fely noticed when Andy walked through the door, but I uldn’t pay too much attentn to him bee I was spg out the scene, keepg my ey on the prize, lookg to get laid, which is what he was dog, too, I’m sure. Bret thought I was g on to his mom that night.</p><p data-no-id="187" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>GERRY HOWARD, </strong>EDITOR: Now, I’m a nice boy om Brooklyn, and what I enuntered at that party I’d never enuntered before—jt this air of blasé rptn. And you uldn’t get to the bathroom. I was fifteen years olr than everybody there, and I felt like one of the ls experienced people the room. There are some experienc I don’t need.</p><hr data-no-id="188" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="189" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">POSTGRADUATION, 1986–92</h2><p data-no-id="190" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>I was more often Jay’s crowd than he was me. Which mak sense. I was still wh a bunch of twenty-one-year-olds who’d jt graduated om Benngton. He was the crowd that everyone wanted to be part of.</p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="191" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Alhol, Drk, Event, Liqur, Distilled beverage, " tle="Alhol, Drk, Event, Liqur, Distilled beverage, " loadg="lazy" width="3600" height="2400" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Jay McInnerney and Bret Easton Ellis at The Crane Club, New York Cy.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Patrick McMullan/PMC.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="192" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>It was Jay, of urse, and Gary [Fisketjon, edor at Knopf] and Man. Andy Warhol was around, and David Byrne, and the Brat Pack—Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Molly Rgwald, Robert Downey Jr., Michael J. Fox when he was starrg <em>Bright Lights, Big Cy</em>.</p><p data-no-id="193" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS</strong>: Jay and I didn’t see thgs the same way at all, so there was always a b of tensn. He was very much a tradnalist, an tablishment figure, a ltle b of a bad boy but not really. And my athetic was L.A. and numbns and punk and mimalism shroud a kd of ambivalent sexualy. All of that was an anathema to Jay. Jay’s very heterosexual.</p><p data-no-id="194" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JAY McINERNEY: </strong>Jim [a lawyer, not out profsnally] was around for a long time before he was acknowledged as the boyiend. I fally took Bret to task for . I said, “Do you thk I’m stupid or homophobic? Bee I a’t eher.”</p><p data-no-id="195" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Jay’s always so surprised that I never talked to him about my gayns, even though I had boyiends and certaly wasn’t pretendg to be straight. Then Jim me to the picture and we were livg together, and that’s when Jay noticed, and he was like, “Why didn’t you ever tell me?” And I’m like, “What are you talkg about, Jay?” It was all there <em>Ls Than Zero</em>. Really, is a straight man ever gog to wre a book that revolv around male prostutn? And anyway, I don’t even know what g out is. I never me out. For me, was neher here nor there, but other people got riled up about , and Jay was one of them. </p><p data-no-id="196" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>I loved Jim. Jim was a gentleman.</p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="197" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90">"Donna was this unknown, unpublished wrer, and then, all of a sudn, there was this huge biddg war for her book.... Bret started llg her Madonna Tartt."—Ian Gtler</blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="198" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>I got a ltle of Patrick Bateman om Jim, who was Waspy, very good-lookg, totally straight actg, and the closet. Donna was datg Jim’s bt iend, Bill. The four of spent a lot of time together. This was the early neti. <em>Amerin Psycho </em>had jt e out, and <em>The Secret History </em>was makg the rounds of publishg ho. There was a lot of e around, and Donna was to . This is not like, “She’s a dggie.” We were all dog . One night I asked her what she thought of <em>Amerin Psycho. </em>She wouldn’t answer. I’ll never fet the exprsn on her face the darkns of Jim’s loft. She had this rict se that was also a glare. I felt she wanted to say, “Your book is god-awful,” but by force of etiquette—even wasted on ke the middle of the night—she wouldn’t go there. Soon after, she and Gary [Fisketjon] started hookg up, and she left Bill, and I saw her ls.</p><p data-no-id="199" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Donna had a pug that always me [out] wh .</p><p data-no-id="200" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JAY McINERNEY: </strong>We were really bched, everybody divg and gog pletely berserk. Donna was very much a participant everythg, but at the same time, she wasn’t there every night. She would e and go. She was spendg a lot of time, as she do now, gog away to wre, retreatg to Vermont or the South.</p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="201" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Authors by Ulf Anrsen - Donna Tartt" tle="Authors by Ulf Anrsen - Donna Tartt" loadg="lazy" width="2300" height="3528" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Donna Tartt 1993.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Ulf Anrsen/Getty Imag.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="202" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>AMY HERSKOVITZ: </strong>Donna’s tolerance was higher than anyone’s I’ve ever seen, ever, ever—for alhol, for dgs. </p><p data-no-id="203" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>I put Easter egg referenc to <em>The Secret History </em> <em>The Rul of Attractn </em>[“That weird Classics group… [is] probably roamg the untrysi sacrificg farmers and performg pagan ruals”] bee I thought would be funny, an si joke. I thk Donna dited the book to me bee I shaved off a uple years of movg through the system. I got to Bky [Urban, ICM agent], and Bky got to Gary [at Knopf], and the whole al was done a month, and changed Donna’s life. Donna was grateful. But she felt bted to me for somethg I was happy to do. It was a pleasure readg those pag for a .</p><p data-no-id="204" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>IAN GITTLER: </strong>Donna was this unknown, unpublished wrer, and then, all of a sudn, there was this huge biddg war for her book, and the movie rights were sold. Bret started llg her Madonna Tartt.</p><p data-no-id="205" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>ARTURO VIVANTE,</strong> LETTER TO DONNA TARTT, NOVEMBER 23, 1993: I n’t tell you how imprsed I am by your extraordary book… I remember you g to my office for the tutorials and how excg your work was, such a treat, and how I once said to Bret, "Donna ought to be able to publish that," and he agreed.</p><p data-no-id="206" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM, </strong>FROM “ZELIG OF NOTORIETY”: No one had ever seen a first novel hoisted past reviewers to legend by a publicy mache, or if they had, they’d fotten.</p><p data-no-id="207" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MICHIKO KAKUTANI</strong>, REVIEW OF <em>THE SECRET HISTORY</em>, <em>NEW YORK TIMES</em>, 9/4/92: How bt to scribe Donna Tartt’s enthrallg first novel? Image the plot of Dostoyevsky’s <em>Crime and Punishment </em>crossed wh the story of Euripis’ <em>Bacchae</em>… told the elegant, mative voice of Evelyn Wgh’s <em>Brishead Revised</em>.</p><p data-no-id="208" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM, </strong>FROM “ZELIG OF NOTORIETY”: Every person I relled om our time at Benngton seemed reworked [Donna’s] pag, except I saw no spot for myself—unls, as I joked to my girliend, was as the murred Vermont farmer, a character so beneath the regard of the book’s characters that he barely registers as human.</p><p data-no-id="209" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="210" class="align-left size-medium embed css-108o02t e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Technology, Electronic vice, Book ver, " tle="Technology, Electronic vice, Book ver, " loadg="lazy" width="452" height="706" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">The Secret History.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="211" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"> <strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN</strong>: I cherish <em>The Secret History </em>bee sav that time of my life. I’ll have forever bee of that book.</p><p data-no-id="212" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong><em>The Secret History </em>isn’t so much a work of fictn. It’s a work of thly veiled realy—a roman à clef. When me out, Cl and Matt and I got endls lls. Everybody was sayg, “Oh, did you know Donna jt wrote a book about Cl and you all? And Cl is Julian and Matt is Bunny and you’re Henry.”</p><p data-no-id="213" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>I lled my mother and said, “I’ve been ritured a book, and my character gets killed.” And she said, “No, no. No one would ever kill you, not even prt, no.” Then she read the book and said, “That’s you all right.” I wore wire-rimmed glass like Bunny. I had dyslexia—that’s what they lled the 70s, anyway—like Bunny. And, like Bunny, I was an extremely affected young man. I’d make broad, qutnable statements. One day the dg hall I was gawkg at some girl and said, “Remds me of the way Diana’s pated on the ceilg of my father’s club,” and that le found s way to Donna’s book. And I’d ve people to lunch and then realize I didn’t have any money, somethg ar old Bunny do. I was kd of a horrible bounr, though my se was never tentnal. A funny thg. Bunny was actually what everyone lled Margaret, Pl’s first girliend—the girliend before Donna, a cranberry heirs. Some folks thought odd that my character’s name should’ve been taken om Pl’s old flame. But I always thought the name me om the cric Edmund Wilson. Bunny was his nickname, too.</p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="214" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Hair, Hairstyle, Forehead, Su, Ch, Cool, Formal wear, Black hair, Whe-llar worker, Tuxedo, " tle="Hair, Hairstyle, Forehead, Su, Ch, Cool, Formal wear, Black hair, Whe-llar worker, Tuxedo, " loadg="lazy" width="900" height="1339" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">Matt Jabsen, mol for <em>The Secret History</em> character Bunny.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Matt Jabson.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="215" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>I might well have been pable of tearg a farmer to shreds while nng through the woods, naked, screamg Greek. I don’t know. I never did.</p><p data-no-id="216" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>I was livg California 1985. And lo and behold, Donna lls me my ltle slum apartment. I immediately ask, “How did you get my number?” She says, “Your mother gave to me.” And then she starts askg me qutns. I realized later was her wantg to know, How would Bunny answer this? I jt said, “Donna, I’ve got to go,” and hung up.</p><p data-no-id="217" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>Henry’s apartment was like my apartment. His eye problems, the chip his tooth. I smoked Lucky Strik. I wore spenrs and glass. I’d gone to a Benedicte monastery for high school, where I learned Lat, and I tght myself Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Sanskr. I was very ep to the study of Plato and Plot, as Henry is scribed as beg. I did go on a trip wh Matt, and I did end up havg to pay for bee his father didn’t give him much money and he was a b of a sponge, though he and I always had fun together. And what Henry said about Julian—“I loved him more than anyone the world”—was te of how I felt about Cl. He was the sgle greatt fluence on my life.</p><p data-no-id="218" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>The ia of Cl havg a big nouve-riche pile of Montblancs was really too much.</p><p data-no-id="219" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>No, the Montblancs were te. But was a piece of accintalia that Donna seized on and ed a poted way. The only time I heard Cl’s voice the entire novel was when Julian said, “I hope you’re ready to leave the phenomenal world and enter to the sublime.” That’s somethg Cl did say. But Donna’s Julian is Cl through a glass darkly. Cl nsired a betrayal—not a personal betrayal so much as a betrayal of his teachgs. He wouldn’t talk to Donna for years.</p><div supprsHydratnWarng data-no-id="220" data-embed="pullquote" class="embed css-0 e9hzx6g0"><blockquote class="css-1eiql25 e1pe3zr91"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-ow0dpz eagam8p0"></span><blockquote class="css-la9czl e1pe3zr90">"Benngton was the last prerve of a nt old culture that fascated and appalled everyone.... That's why when the Purge me was such a nvulsive thg."—Jonathan Lethem</blockquote><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></blockquote></div><p data-no-id="221" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JAMES KAPLAN, </strong>JOURNALIST; FROM “SMART TARTT," <em>VANITY FAIR, </em>1992: <em>The Secret History</em>’s narrator, Richard Papen, hails om the fictnal and adly Plano, California . . . where his father ns a gas statn and his mother is a secretary. Tartt is highly guard (to say the least) about any relatnship between the novel and her own life, but there is surely mon ground. . . . Don Tartt was an upwardly mobile small-town operator who . . . own[ed] a eeway service statn. . . . [His] wife, Taylor, [was] a secretary for much of the time they were married.</p><p data-no-id="222" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>INTERVIEWED IN <em>THE BENNINGTON VOICE, </em>OCTOBER 28, 1992: Richard is actually a very skewed character. . . . His sexualy is kd of weird. He’s so paranoid about where he om, and that’s a large part of the paranoia of the book, his fear of beg found out.</p><p data-no-id="223" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>The ctuo tws, though, I don’t know where Donna got them.</p><p data-no-id="224" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT,</strong> LETTER TO JONATHAN LETHEM, DATED FEBRUARY 25, 1983: Pl & I were almost kicked out of our lodggs last Tuday. The charg? Inct. That’s really rather imprsive, isn’t ? Fortunately we are not brother and sister, or else we would have been que guilty. Our landlords are mor and spible Nazis, and even though we were as pure of ct as bab arms, by provg ourselv nocent of <u>that</u> we proved ourselv guilty ( their ey) of Immoral Conduct… [Pl] h upon the very excellent plan of offerg… extra money for rent. Worked like a charm.</p><p data-no-id="225" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>Cl was a seeker more than anythg else. That’s where Donna gets wrong. We weren’t the silly pedants gog around translatg Greek to Lat, or vice versa, or whatever she has dog. Cl was, I was, tryg to fd a way to be a plete person, to live well orr to die well, the same as Socrat and Plato. I thk that’s why people are still, to this day, fascated by Donna’s book. It’s not the potboiler part, the murr mystery, that fascat them. It’s the part that Cl gave her. Even though nobody knows ancient Greek, and probably wouldn’t spend the time learng if they were given a ee opportuny, they still sense somethg valid and betiful there, somethg that the morn world don’t provi. </p><div size="medium" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="226" class="align-center size-medium embed css-1736von e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Photograph, Farm, Rural area, Black-and-whe, Monochrome photography, Photography, Pasture, Monochrome, Adaptatn, History, " tle="Photograph, Farm, Rural area, Black-and-whe, Monochrome photography, Photography, Pasture, Monochrome, Adaptatn, History, " loadg="lazy" width="900" height="692" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">A Benngton Classics Department ftival, cir late 1960s, anized by Cl Frericks.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Courty of Todd O'Neal.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="227" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>Ten years after Benngton, not long after <em>The Secret History </em>me out, I met Pl at his office New York. He said that Donna had lived wh him while he was at Harvard Law and she was wrg, and then dumped him like a hot potato when the book was accepted. He was very wound talkg about her. I long felt that Donna was the Yoko Ono of the Greek class. If she uldn’t be part of our tight group, she would stroy . And that’s what happened. Our iendships fell apart.</p><hr data-no-id="228" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="229" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">“THE PURGE,” 1994 </h2><p data-no-id="230" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>Benngton was the last prerve of a nt old culture that fascated and appalled everyone. Bee of s special properti of isolatn and eccentricy, got to be the place that was that way the longt. What had been quietly and refully distilled out of other atmospher hadn’t been nonted there. That’s why when the Purge me was such a nvulsive thg.</p><p data-no-id="231" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><em><strong>THE NEW YORK TIMES,</strong> </em>FROM “BENNINGTON MEANS BUSINESS,” OCTOBER 23, 1994: This year, Benngton is nng a ln-dollar fic. Somethg had to be done to cut sts. . . . [A] third of the school’s faculty members, many of them tenured, received registered letters rmg them, tt legal language, that their servic were no longer lled for. . . . [V]irtually one person, the print [Elizabeth Coleman, 1987–2013], has ma all the cisns about firg and retentn.</p><p data-no-id="232" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT</strong>, Letter to the Edor, <em>New York Tim</em>, 11/13/94: Though Elizabeth Coleman seems to feel that Benngton had been plunged to some sort of tellectual dark age before was graced wh her arrival, was an electric and magil place durg my years there… As a novelist, I learned my craft large part om the lerary amics (Richard Tristman, Mra Spiegel, Cl Frericks) whom she has seen f to dismiss… [I]t is tragic to wns how Coleman’s ignorant tkerg has stroyed this rare and lite environment.</p><p data-no-id="233" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>TODD O’NEAL: </strong>Everythg at Benngton changed when Elizabeth Coleman beme print. All she said about wantg ntuy was a lie. What she wanted was to dimish the faculty and exalt the admistratn. And Cl, bee of the unassailable rpect he had, was able to block her. [She] need a pretext to get rid of Cl, and then a stunt claimed that Cl had h on him. A wch hunt started, and Cl was eventually oted. Donna’s book was Elizabeth Coleman’s unwtg acplice, bee sowed the seed that there might be somethg sid what he was dog wh stunts. I saw Benngton as a Thorevian Plato’s Amy Ameri. Elizabeth Coleman stroyed that.</p><p data-no-id="234" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>SARI RUBINSTEIN</strong>: From my pot of view, The Purge was horrible. Every other llege Ameri was basilly a votnal school for a reer. Why on earth would Elizabeth Coleman try to make people go to law school and medil school? That’s not why anyone me to Benngton. Benngton was a really special place for artists. She sp on all that. I remember she took all the antiqu out of the dorms, sold them, and bought Ikea.</p><p data-no-id="235" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>MATT JACOBSEN: </strong>It was never uniendly between me and Cl, but as I fell more eply love wh Liz [Glotzer, Jabsen’s girliend and eventual wife], I saw ls of Cl. I realized was kd of ridiculo to hang out wh him, ol as he was. And he wasn’t gog to get what he wanted om me, so he moved on to greener pastur, started foolg around wh another guy who’d been his stunt. At the end of the day, Cl was driven by a—you know—perverse tert me. And that was wrong. I’m a geezer now, and I unrstand how wrong he really was.</p><p data-no-id="236" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>How did I feel about the Purge? I felt that somethg prec and remarkable was beg stroyed. And I felt that jtice was beg meted out to people who’d been manipulatg stunts unr the guise of mentorg them for a long time. I was jt as mixed up about that as I was about all the rt of Benngton.</p><hr data-no-id="237" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="238" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">BEYOND “THE PURGE,” 1994–</h2><p data-no-id="239" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>In <em>Fortrs of Solu </em>[published 2003], I wrote about Benngton a very direct way, barely fictnalizg, which is unual for me. It seemed funny that I end up dog what both Bret and Donna—Jill Eisenstadt, as well—had done so long after they’d done . Callg Benngton “Camn,” Bret’s name for Benngton, was my way of tippg my hat, sayg, “This is your fictnal terra, but I’m gog to occupy momentarily.”</p><p data-no-id="240" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"></p><style data-emotn="css gv3b6u">{--data-embed-display:flex;-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;marg-bottom:0.9375rem;}@media(m-width: 20rem){{clear:both;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{clear:both;marg-left:to;marg-right:to;width:100%;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{width:70%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{width:70%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{width:60%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:0rem;float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 73.75rem){{width:60%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{width:60%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:left;clear:left;}}@media(m-width: 90rem){{width:60%;marg-right:1rem;marg-left:lc(-30% - 1rem);float:left;clear:left;}} a span{right:1rem;} img{width:to;height:85vh;} a{display:-webk-le-box;display:-webk-le-flex;display:-ms-le-flexbox;display:le-flex;posn:var(--posn, relative);} img:not(.ewcw41w1){display:block;width:100%;height:to;-webk-align-self:flex-start;-ms-flex-em-align:flex-start;align-self:flex-start;}</style><div size="large" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="241" class="align-left size-large embed css-gv3b6u e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Text, Font, Poster, Multimedia software, " tle="Text, Font, Poster, Multimedia software, " loadg="lazy" width="1080" height="1078" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-78jldq e1xqj1sx2"><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">.</span></figptn></div></div></div><p data-no-id="242" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>I beme aware of Jonathan as a wrer when this galley me to me the early neti. I don’t remember what the book was lled— was a noir maybe and I thk there were animals , talkg animals [<em>Gun wh Ocsnal Mic</em>]? Anyway, was like, “Jonathan Lethem is a wrer?” I kept up wh all his books after that, but I never que nnected wh them. Then <em>Fortrs </em>me out. At first I uldn’t get to . I was readg too fast. So I slowed down, five pag here, ten pag there, and I got swept up . I thk ’s one of the great books of our generatn. What he did was wondro.</p><p data-no-id="243" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>In 2005, I went back to Benngton to give the mencement addrs. At the time, Benngton was extremely uneasy about s e years past and therefore had to pretend that Bret’s and Donna’s wrg didn’t exist. Then I me along. The irony is, I do have that chapter about Benngton <em>Fortrs </em>that should have been appallg to them. But my book don’t wear on s sleeve that I went to the most rpt, nt llege the untry, so I weirdly beme the safe one for them to claim. Givg that addrs—me, the sophomore on leave—was an amazg piece of closure. Here I was on the grounds aga and the print’s embrace. In a funny sense, was graduatn day for me. It’s like I went where I failed to go.</p><div size="small" data-embed="body-image" data-no-id="244" class="align-center size-small embed css-f1dz33 e1xqj1sx4"><div class="css-uwraif e1xqj1sx3"><img alt="Glass, Aud equipment, Official, " tle="Glass, Aud equipment, Official, " loadg="lazy" width="1920" height="2560" dg="async" data-nimg="1" style="lor: transparent; width: 100%; height: to;" siz="100vw" srcSet=" 640w, 980w, 1120w, 1200w, 1920w" src="" class="css-0 exi4f7p0" /><div class="css-swqnqv e1xqj1sx2"><div class="css-8h7i7x e1xqj1sx1">"Sophomore on leave" Jonathan Lethem givg Benngton mencement speech, 2005.</div><figptn class="css-1am3yn9 enfs9c50"><span class="css-1mcfn5x e6iqd2">Gregory Cher/Benngton College.</span></figptn></div></div></div><hr data-no-id="245" class="css-18pb4rg et3p2gv0" /><h2 data-no-id="246" class="body-h2 css-qplj0i et3p2gv0">VALEDICTORIES</h2><p data-no-id="247" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>BRET EASTON ELLIS: </strong>Benngton was built for me. It was exactly what I was lookg for. Everythg about the mp, the people I met, the settg self, the eedom I was given— was a tly blissful perd. Y, there was tensn and, y, there was heartache, but overall I loved . I absolutely loved .</p><p data-no-id="248" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>JONATHAN LETHEM: </strong>Benngton was, for me, as formative and fluential as uld possibly be. I’ll never be done wh that place.</p><p data-no-id="249" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0"><strong>DONNA TARTT, </strong>FROM AN INTERVIEW IN <em>THE GUARDIAN, </em>OCTOBER 26, 2013:</p><p data-no-id="250" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0">Q: When were you happit?</p><p data-no-id="251" class="css-aeyldl et3p2gv0">A: At Benngton. </p><style data-emotn="css ciejky">{clear:both;marg-top:1.25rem;}</style><div id="journey-le" class="css-ciejky e1cslvxz0"></div><style data-emotn="css 79elbk">{posn:relative;}</style><div class="css-79elbk eg8z2o90"><div class="css-79elbk e1tp40ll1"><div data-anchor-id="P0-0" class="css-0 e1tp40ll0"></div></div><style data-emotn="css hi6ssp">{display:block;grid-area:article_body;grid-lumn:article_body-start/article_body-end;grid-row:to;jtify-self:center;marg:1.25rem 0 0;}@media prt{{display:none;}}@media(max-width: 30rem){{width:100%;}}@media(max-width: 61.25rem){{m-height:28rem;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{width:488px;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{width:612px;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{max-width:40.25rem;}}</style><div class="css-hi6ssp eg8z2o92"></div></div></div></div><div></div><div data-teractive="WatchNext-1" class="css-0 e10xr3vp6"><style data-emotn="css 1pqv15d">{marg-bottom:1.875rem;marg-top:1.875rem;paddg:0 0.938rem;}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{paddg:0 2.5rem;}}</style><div data-embed="watch-next" class="css-1pqv15d e10xr3vp5"><style data-emotn="css 604vx7">{text-align:center;marg:0 to;max-width:60rem;borr-top:0.125rem solid #15263D;}</style><div class="css-604vx7 e10xr3vp4"><style data-emotn="css 1sowyjy">{marg-bottom:1.25rem;}</style><div class="css-1sowyjy e10xr3vp3"><style data-emotn="css ju94x7">{marg:0rem;font-weight:normal;background-lor:#ffffff;lor:#000;borr:0.125rem solid #15263D;text-align:left;width:-webk-f-ntent;width:-moz-f-ntent;width:f-ntent;borr-radi:2rem;display:block;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.70028rem;le-height:1.2;letter-spacg:0.04rem;marg-top:-1rem;paddg:0.5rem 0.9375rem 0.25rem;text-transform:upperse;}</style><h6 class="css-ju94x7 e10xr3vp2"><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p0"></span><span class="css-0 e10xr3vp1">Watch Next</span><span aria-hidn="te" class="css-0 eagam8p1"></span></h6><style data-emotn="css un61">{-webk-align-ems:center;-webk-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-ems:center;display:-webk-box;display:-webk-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;font-fay:Lsanne,Lsanne-fallback,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:normal;-webk-box-pack:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;-webk-jtify-ntent:center;jtify-ntent:center;marg:0rem;m-height:to;paddg-top:1rem;text-align:left;}@media(max-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.5rem;le-height:1.1;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{font-size:1.875rem;le-height:1.3;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{font-size:2.125rem;le-height:1.2;}}</style><h6 class="css-un61 e10xr3vp0"> </h6></div><style data-emotn="css b3y6x">{marg-bottom:0.9375rem;--aspect-rat:56.25%;} {posn:absolute;marg:0rem;}{ntent:"";display:block;height:0rem;width:100%;}@media(max-width: 30rem){{paddg-bottom:lc((45% / 1.16) + 20px + 1.66em);}}@media(m-width: 30rem) and (max-width: 48rem){{paddg-bottom:lc((45% / 1.43) + 20px + 1.66em);}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem) and (max-width: 64rem){{paddg-bottom:lc((33% / 1.40) + 20px + 1.66em);}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{paddg-bottom:lc((25% / 1.36) + 20px + 1.66em);}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{paddg-bottom:lc((25% / 1.46) + 20px + 1.66em);}}</style><div class="__rp-ntaer css-b3y6x e6l0f0"><style data-emotn="css 1yu8e3d">{marg-bottom:0.9375rem;width:100%;height:100%;} .__rp-ntaer{height:to;}</style><div data-embed="embed-vio" class="vio-player css-1yu8e3d e1ou1fny0"><style data-emotn="css 1uds6oo">{height:100%;width:100%;posn:relative;}</style><div class="css-1uds6oo e1f7ylgd6"><style data-emotn="css w2pm9t">{background-lor:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4);borr:.1875rem solid whe;borr-radi:50%;lor:#fff;cursor:poter;height:3.75rem;left:50%;posn:absolute;-webk-transform:translate(-50%,-50%);-moz-transform:translate(-50%,-50%);-ms-transform:translate(-50%,-50%);transform:translate(-50%,-50%);-webk-transn:all 0.4s;transn:all 0.4s;width:3.75rem;z-x:1;}.e1f7ylgd6:hover {background-lor:rgba(33, 150, 245, 0.8);lor:#ffffff;}@media(m-width: 20rem){{top:26%;}}@media(m-width: 30rem){{top:29.5%;}}@media(m-width: 40.625rem){{top:32.5%;}}@media(m-width: 48rem){{top:34.5%;height:5.625rem;width:5.625rem;borr:.28125rem solid whe;}}@media(m-width: 64rem){{top:35%;}}@media(m-width: 75rem){{top:35.8%;}}</style><button aria-label="Play Vio" class="css-w2pm9t e1f7ylgd1"><style data-emotn="css 1lhf7lq">{fill:#ffffff;height:1.4rem;vertil-align:middle;width:1.45rem;}@media(m-width: 48rem){{width:2.3125rem;height:3rem;}}</style><svg xmlns=" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" style="fill: var(--primary, #000);" role="img" tle="Play" class="css-1lhf7lq e1f7ylgd2"><tle>play in

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