“From what I understood of him, his book was very important to him,” Nathanson said.
Heisman worked in several bookstores in the area and relied on an inheritance from his father Alvin Heisman—who passed away while Mitchell Heisman was still an adolescent—to support his writing, according to his mother.
But he was reluctant to talk to her about its contents, she said.
“I’m devastated. I just can’t believe it,” she said. “I don’t think I ever will.”
She spoke with Heisman just two days before his death, she said.
“I expected him to come here to help me move, which I am in the process of,” she said. “I expected him to come back in October. He really was non-committal.”
—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.