Jeff by Mark & Robert

Jeff with a northern pike, caught on a fishing trip with his dad.

Jeff at home.

Mark in 1971.

Robert (second from left) with Gil Kerr, Brock Walsh, Mark Zelinski, and David Hutt, summer 1973 in Denver.

Jeffrey Wright, one of the most charismatic members of the Class of 1975, was a voracious reader from Vincennes, Ind. who dreamed of becoming a writer and, at six feet, six inches, had been tapped to play basketball by John Wooden at UCLA and Pete Carril at Princeton. But on May 23, 1977, Jeff killed himself in his parents’ backyard — and his friends from Harvard never forgot his effect on their lives.

“He’s the first person I ever met I could just be myself with and talk to,” recalls one of his closest friends, Mark Bransdorfer, who would go onto practice law and teach literature at the University of Michigan. “Some of us miss him so much we can’t talk about him, except with each other.” Adds Robert McIver, another pal from freshman year who has been practicing law in Greensboro, NC for more than 40 years: “Jeffrey could really feel literature and he could express that feeling, and it touched him and moved him and even transformed him.”

In this deeply affecting episode of PasstheMic75, Mark and Robert continue their lifelong tribute to Jeff. From their beer-soaked antics on the rooftop of Weld Hall to a wild trip to Graceland to a memorable visit to William Faulkner’s house, they offer stories of a friend who grew darker and more disturbed with time. And yet, they remember him as the one who taught them how to read: slowly and closely.