Garth Stein was born in Los Angeles, California on December 6, 1964, to a mother of Tlingit descent and a father who was the child of Austrian Jewish immigrants. Though he was born in Los Angeles, the majority of his childhood was spent in Seattle. He lived in New York City for almost two decades, receiving a BA and MFA from Columbia University, before returning to his home city of Seattle.
Stein bases much of his fiction on his first-hand experiences growing up in Seattle. The Art of Racing in the Rain and his more recent novel, A Sudden Light, are both set in the suburbs of Seattle, where Stein spent a lot of time as a child playing with his friends.
In addition to being a best-selling...
