The Class: A Novel

Front Cover
Random House Publishing Group, 1986 M01 1 - 560 pages
From world-renowned author Erich Segal comes a powerful and moving saga of five extraordinary members of the Harvard class of 1958 and the women with whom their lives are intertwined.

Five lives, five love stories:

Danny Rossi, the musical prodigy, risks it all for Harvard, even a break with his domineering father. Yet his real problems are too much fame too soon—and too many women.
Ted Lambros spends his four years as a commuter, an outsider. He is obsessed by his desire to climb to the top of the Harvard academic ladder, heedless of what it will cost him in personal terms.
Jason Gilbert, the Golden Boy—handsome, charismatic, a brilliant athlete—learns at Harvard that he cannot ignore his Jewish background. Only in tragedy will he find his true identity.
George Keller, a refugee from Communist Hungary, comes to Harvard with the barest knowledge of English. But with ruthless determination, he masters not only the language but the power structure of his new country.
Andrew Eliot is haunted by three centuries of Harvard ancestors who cast giant shadows on his confidence. It is not until the sad and startling events of the reunion that he learns his value as a man.

Their explosive story begins in a time of innocence and spans a turbulent quarter century, culminating in their dramatic twenty-five year reunion at which they confront their classmates—and the balance sheet of their own lives.

Always at the center; amid the  passion, laughter, and glory, stands Harvard—the symbol of who they are and who they will be. They were a generation who made the rules—then broke  them—whose glittering successes, heartfelt  tragedies, and unbridled ambitions would stun the world.

Praise for The Class

“Erich Segal’s best.”Pittsburgh Press

“First class entertainment.”Cosmopolitan

“An absorbing page-turner.”Publishers Weekly

“A panoramic saga.”Philadelphia Inquirer
 

Selected pages

Contents

Section 1
1
Section 2
3
Section 3
5
Section 4
6
Section 5
13
Section 6
17
Section 7
20
Section 8
41
Section 18
272
Section 19
367
Section 20
402
Section 21
438
Section 22
472
Section 23
496
Section 24
505
Section 25
508

Section 9
58
Section 10
66
Section 11
102
Section 12
113
Section 13
163
Section 14
197
Section 15
237
Section 16
252
Section 17
260
Section 26
511
Section 27
513
Section 28
515
Section 29
520
Section 30
525
Section 31
529
Section 32
537
Copyright

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About the author (1986)

Erich Segal (1937–2010) began his writing career with the phenomenally successful Love Story. He wrote eight other novels, including The Class, which was an international bestseller and won literary prizes in France and Italy. Doctors reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Segal’s academic focus included Green and Latin literature—subjects he taught at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford.

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