Biography
Abbott was born at Camp Skeel in Oscoda, Michigan, to an Irish-American soldier and a Chinese prostitute. According to his book, In the Belly of the Beast, he claimed to have been in and out of foster care from the moment of his birth until the age of nine, at which point he started "serving long stints in juvenile detention quarters." As a child, Abbott was in trouble with teachers and later with the law, and by the age of 16 was sent to a long-term reform institution, the Utah State Industrial School. According to Abbott, his mistreatment by the school guards left him scarred for life.
The Australian film Ghosts... of the Civil Dead was inspired by his life.
Read more about this topic: Jack Abbott
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“As we approached the log house,... the projecting ends of the logs lapping over each other irregularly several feet at the corners gave it a very rich and picturesque look, far removed from the meanness of weather-boards. It was a very spacious, low building, about eighty feet long, with many large apartments ... a style of architecture not described by Vitruvius, I suspect, though possibly hinted at in the biography of Orpheus.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)