Charles Yale Harrison "New Masses" communist literary magazine in New York City while under editor-in-chief Walt Carmon. Harrison's last novel, "Nobody's Fool", was published in 1948. Harrison married three times; he was widowed in 1931, later remarried and divorced his second wife, and was survived by his third wife at his death. He was an uncle of novelist Judith Rossner, author of "Looking for Mr. Goodbar". Suffering from the heart condition that inspired his self-help memoir, he died in 1954. Columbia University has an archive of Harrison's papers, which include correspondence with: Whittaker Chambers, Clarence Darrow, Ruby Darrow, John Dos Passos, Max Eastman,
Looking for Alaska forgives Alaska for dying, as he knows Alaska would forgive him for letting her go. After Alaska's death, Pudge and Colonel investigate the circumstances surrounding the traumatic event. While looking for answers, the boys are subconsciously dealing with their grief, and their obsession over these answers transforms into a search for meaning. Pudge and Colonel want to find out the answers to certain questions surrounding Alaska's death, but in reality, they are enduring their own labyrinths of suffering, a concept central to the novel. When their theology teacher Mr. Hyde poses a question to his class about the meaning of