1939
Norman graduates from Boys' High School in June near the top of a 650-member class and in late September enters Harvard to study aeronautical engineering. He had also been accepted by MIT but chose Harvard — partly because MIT would require a year of prep school, and partly, in his own telling, "because the name Harvard resonates with Brooklyn girls." Over the winter he begins discovering modern American literature.
June
Norman graduates from Boys’ High School in Brooklyn, near the top of a 650-member class.
Late September
Norman enters Harvard University as a freshman, intending to study aeronautical engineering. He had also been accepted by MIT but preferred Harvard, in Lennon’s phrasing, “partly because a year of prep school is required [at MIT], and partly because the name Harvard resonates with Brooklyn girls”.
Fall and winter
Mailer begins what he later described to Steven Marcus as his discovery of modern American literature: “All through December 1939 and January 1940 I was discovering modern American literature” (Advertisements for Myself, 1959, p. 27). See 1940 for the Dos Passos / Farrell / Steinbeck reading list and the Harvard Advocate–era composition that follows.
Family portraits
Alex Mailer, pictured with Norman and Barbara, is not identified in Lennon’s Days RTF — likely a cousin, but flagged in backlog.md for research.