Quit high school, then got kicked out of the Army with a broken eardrum after only two weeks, went on to work in a Charleston glass shop for $1.05 an hour, and looked to be on a fast track to nowhere.

Now if that's not an official admission that those old 'separate-but-equal' doctrines never worked, what is? 'Historically, it's an interesting document-not because it's mine but because it states that I am the equivalent of the average white high school grad in the state. John got a GED certificate from the state of South Carolina in the early 1960s.

'In those times I really have to work to get my story, whatever it is, back on track.' Sometimes it leads a writer away from his story, causing a month's worth of drifting, rambling around, groping. Often the inability to concentrate demanded eight or ten hours of effort for two good hours of work. John felt he should be a poster boy for ADD. There was no sneaky nonsense, no hidden screens that popped up and wouldn't go away, and at no time in my 35 years as a writer did I ever 'lose' anything because I hit a certain key, failed to hold my mouth right, or sneezed at the wrong moment.' 'Unlike a computer, a great old manual typewriter was an honest machine. 'This may explain my long affection for typewriters,' he says. Several years ago he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD), a malady that could not have been imagined in the glorious 1950s. He left high school in the tenth grade, partly because of an inability to concentrate and absorb lectures.

John always wanted to write, but was a poor student. He was raised in Charleston, SC, is married, and has two adult children. John Dunning was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, NY.

Booked to Die by John Dunning