J. G. Sandom - Early Life

Early Life

Born in Chicago (19 December 1956), the youngest of three children, of a Danish immigrant mother (Else Hvingtoft) and father of Lithuanian ancestry (Zane Joseph Sandom), J.G. Sandom moved to Weybridge, England, at nine months. Zane Sandom worked for American Express and the family was transferred to France, where the author first began attending school at St. Martin's, in the town of Jouy-en-Josas, near Versailles. Less than two years later, Sandom moved to Rome, Italy, where he attended St. George's British International School during the next four years. While in Italy, Sandom performed on the legitimate stage at the Goldoni theatre as a mouse in the English pantomime Cinderella, and in a full-length motion picture produced by Dino De Laurentiis starring Walter Chiari, called Il Giovedi.

Sandom then moved to San Rafael, California, where he attended the 3-Rs school, and where he first developed an interest in writing. After less than two years in San Rafael, the Sandom family was transferred back to Europe; they resided at the Wentworth Estate in Surrey England, not far from Virginia Water. Sandom attended The Fernden School in Haslemere, Surrey, and Winchester College, in Hampshire, over the next five years, through his O-Levels. During this period, the author’s family was transferred back to the United States, while he remained in boarding school in England.

Sandom returned to the United States at the age of 15. Following two years at New Canaan High School in Connecticut, Sandom entered Amherst College in 1974, where he completed his first novel, The Seed of Icarus. Sandom took a semester off from college in order to work on a freighter (The African Dawn) which traveled to Namibia, South Africa and Mozambique, and then returned to graduate from Amherst with honors with a double major in English and philosophy. While in college, Sandom helped launch a literary magazine called Writing at Amherst, won both the Corbin prize and the Academy of American Poets prize, and studied under a variety of visiting writers, including Robert Stone, Julian Symons and the Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney.

Following graduation, Sandom spent several months traveling throughout the Sahara, primarily in southern Algeria, while researching his second novel, The Blue Men. Sandom then moved to New York City where, for the next five years, he worked as a freelance copy writer, public relations and advertising executive, and corporate spokesperson trainer for such companies as Hill & Knowlton and Ketchum Inc.