
And twice a day, students from the Carillon Guild climb 144 steps into Beaumont Tower to serenade the campus on bells weighing upwards of a ton each. As the official tour guides will tell you, three of the last six presidents held at least one degree from the 300-year-old college. It was move-in day at Harkness College, and parents of the new frosh were oohing and ahhing all around campus. I could hear the anticipation in her voice.


“This looks promising,” my mother said, eyeing the dormitory’s ivy-covered facade. Names, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination, or used fictitiously.

The Year We Fell Down is a work of fiction.
