He says his father was a playright, and his mother had also tried her hand at writing.

Alson began his undergraduate career at the University of California, Berkeley. There, he won a university-wide short story contest, and persuaded one of his English professors to allow him to write short stories in lieu of essays.

Alson says he had wanted to attend Harvard, at which both Mailer and Alson’s mother had studied, but he wasn’t a strong enough candidate upon graduating from high school.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t a great student in high school. I didn’t have the grades to get in, so I went to Berkeley,” he says.

He credits his literary achievements during his two years at Berkeley for making him attractive to Harvard. After his sophomore year, he transferred to Harvard to earn his degree.

Alson studied English, and lived in the Dudley Cooperative.

“When I got to Harvard, I very much wanted to live in one of the Houses, and there was no room,” he says.

Alson says that his experiences in Dudley were unorthodox.

“The reason I didn’t want to be there was because I felt it was full of Harvard misfits, and I was right,” he says. “It was very borderline, that place.”

Harvard and Berkeley each had strengths, according to Alson.

“Undergraduate education, I think, is better at Berkeley than at Harvard,” he says. “The difference is the students. Almost everyone I encountered at Harvard was exceptional in some way.”

While at Harvard, Alson also wrote for the Advocate, and he says that The Crimson once cited one of his short stories as evidence that literary writing was thriving at Harvard.

Down and Out