Early Reviewers

When a former close friend and rival is murdered, world-weary but still aspiring optimist Jeffrey goes back to the beginning, to those fraught college years at Yale University during the 1980s and to her, to make sense of what happened—only to discover that what needs most making sense of is himself.

By turns smart, funny, and heart-wrenching, Bright College Years tracks Jeff and an ensemble cast as they navigate the shortest, gladdest, most complex years of life—and then the rest of it.

Coming of age doesn't only happen to the young.

“Bright College Years is a wistful trip in a time machine, back to those college years so filled with fun, friendship, and heartache. Travel there with Pessin to a Yale of the early 80s, when a handful of friends thought ever-so-briefly they owned the world.” —Scott Johnston, Yale ’82, author of Amazon bestseller, Campusland