T. Coraghessan Boyle was born Thomas John Boyle in Peekskill, New York, to Irish immigrant parents, on December 2, 1948. When he was seventeen, he changed his middle name to Coraghessan and adopted the initial "T" for his first name. Boyle admits that much of his youth was spent consuming drugs and alcohol and rebelling against authority. He started out his college career as a music major at the State University of New York at Potsdam, and after earning his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968 he took a position teaching high school English to avoid being sent to serve in the Vietnam War. He began writing short stories while in college, and in 1972, one of his early stories, "The OD and Hepatitis Railroad or Bust," was published in the North American Review. This publication inspired him to apply to the famous University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, where he...