An American writer, born in Eunice, Louisiana, United States. After receiving a Jesuit education at Rockhurst High School and Georgetown University, he won a scholarship to study Greek and Latin classics and earned a master's degree in theater history and a Ph.D in comparative literature from Yale University. He served as chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature at Occidental College, a teacher in the UCLA Writers Program, and as a Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Bologna. During his teaching career, he was a frequent columnist for the Los Angeles Times Book Review. He is known for Angels in the Snow (2015).