Remembering Denny

Remembering Denny is Calvin Trillin's most inspired and powerful book to date: a memoir, a work of investigative reporting, a book of self-examination that captures something essential about how America has changed. In 1957, the graduation from Yale of Denny Hansen - "a strapping young man with a flat-top crew cut and a gregarious manner and a broad, absolutely dazzling smile" - was the subject of a feature in Life magazine, with photographs by Alfred Eisenstaedt. A varsity swimmer and Phi Beta Kappa and Rhodes Scholar from California, Hansen was the emblematic college hero of his time and…