At his college newspaper, The Daily Illini, fellow staff members included Larry Doyle, who later became a writer and producer for "The Simpsons" and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker; Dave Cullen, who went on to write the nonfiction bestseller Columbine; Kevin Davis, whose books would include The Brain Defense and Defending the Damned; and Jon Ginoli, who soon gained renown as singer and guitarist for Pansy Division, a pioneering band in the queercore movement of punk rock.
Entertainment Weekly described it as a "rip-roaring account of Le Moyne's adventures," adding that "it's a testament to Harvey's research and style that he can powerfully evoke a man about whom so few documentary traces remain.
Booklist gave the collection a starred review, describing it as "lustrous with unruly passion, strange impulses, untenable loss and the dogged pursuit of solace... Harvey has created an intricately spun, deeply illuminating web of wondrously uncanny and compassionate stories.
"[6] Harvey also plays an active role in Big Shoulders Books,[7] a nonprofit, social-justice publishing company he co-founded in 2011 with fellow DePaul University creative-writing professors Chris Solis Green and Michele Morano.
He has edited two volumes for this press: The Garcia Boy: A Memoir, by the late essayist Rafael Torch,[8] and How Long Will I Cry,[9] a series of oral-history narratives about gun violence that Harvey and his students collected in 2011 and 2012 while more than 900 people were being murdered on the streets of Chicago.