Perrotta, who teaches writing at Harvard, earned his bachelor's degree at Yale, which is the setting for "Joe College." It's there that we meet Danny, the son of a New Jersey lunch-truck driver, whose smarts get him to Yale, but whose small-town roots keep him from truly fitting in. Just when he starts to feel at home and strike a balance between his two worlds, a back-home summer romance comes back to haunt him. Not only that, but his father's mob-world competitors threaten his family's livelihood and maybe even his own life.

In this chapter from "Joe College" Danny recalls a dangerous run-in with a high school bully named Mark "Psycho Midget" Barnhouse.