Sowing Love Story with a few wild Oates.

In addition to being Bloomsday, today also marks the birthdays of Erich Segal, author of Love Story, and Joyce Carol Oates, author of too-much-to-even-start-naming, and so why not consider what might have happened had these two famous Ivy League-ers (he, famously, attended and taught at Harvard, and she, famously, teaches at Princeton) collaborated over Segal's 1970 pop-cultural phenomenon--the story of Oliver and Jennie, two crazy kids at Harvard (and Radcliffe) from different worlds who fall in love.  Jennie, the baker's daughter studying music, and Oliver, a pre-law "preppie" from old-line money.  Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses inheritance because of girl, boy loses girl to dread disease, boy forgives father because as girl as taught him LOVE MEANS NEVER HAVING TO SAY YOU'RE SORRY.

I see Oatesian potential here!

But what might have happened with JCO's inimitably cheery touch?  Jennie, sexually abused by her father, falls in love with Oliver, but because of her seriously tangled issues, begins a secret affair with Oliver Sr.  Oliver Sr. doesn't cut off his son, but when all of his financial shenanigans come to light, he is indicted and kills himself, leaving the couple penniless, whereupon in one sad and drunken escapade they rob a liquor store and accidentally shoot the clerk and a customer.  They go on the lam, but they're caught, and end up in front of Judge Julius Hoffman, still steamed at the Chicago Seven, and when they're asked if they have any last words of contrition before they're sentenced to the gas chamber, they look at each other and say....well, you know the answer to that, preppie!