M.L., “The Mighty Laurence,” is the high-spirited college prankster who drives the novel Unbroken Promises Unbroken Dreams. This coming-ofage lighthearted novel is set at elite Lafayette College against the backdrop of the Vietnam war. Until the startling climax, the book is boisterous and full of humor in a time of war and social and political turbulence. Across the four years at Lafayette, M.L. and his band of marauders, known as “The Magnificent Seven,” carouse from one escapade to another. As the war in Southeast Asia rages, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy shock the nation, and M.L. begins to develop a deep social conscience. Befriending Emma Lee Scoggins, the Black house mistress of his dormitory, M.L. is guided by Emma Lee’s wisdom. August and revered members of the Lafayette faculty also inspire M.L. Throughout the story, M.L. masterminds outrageous pranks while plumbing his soul for what it means to be a man of conscience.