Here's the author singing Patches in 1999 .

Over the top, but in a restrained manner, an odd combination you only seem to find in that genre of music. I can see why people liked it, and evidently still do. In fact I found myself quite liking it, and I'd never heard it before, so it wasn't nostalgia.

Can't see anything too improbable in the story. Young lovers have been killing themselves because of parental opposition since long before Romeo and Juliet or West Side Story.