Padgett Powell was born in Gainesville, Florida, on April 25, 1952, to Albine Batts Powell and Bettyre Palmer Powell, a brewmaster and a schoolteacher, respectively. He grew up in various cities in Florida and South Carolina. In college, Powell struggled with his English classes, opting for chemistry as a major. He graduated from the College of Charleston with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1975 and went on to graduate school at the University of Tennessee. Powell lost interest in school and left before he finished. He moved to Texas and became a roofer.

Powell enrolled in the University of Houston’s Master of Fine Arts program in fiction writing in hopes of meeting women. He studied under post-modernist author Donald Barthelme, and while a student, he developed and wrote his first novel, Edisto. Powell graduated in 1982 and, in 1984, an excerpt of Edisto appeared in the...