Laymon is the author of the essay collection and the narrator of most of the essays within the collection. He is originally from Jackson, Mississippi. His maternal grandmother is Catherine Coleman, and his mother is a professor at Jackson State University. Laymon writes little about his father, whom he visited in upstate New York during his childhood. In Jackson, Laymon attended Christ the King, a parochial school, then Holy Family Catholic School. Laymon first attended Millsaps College, where he wrote for the school newspaper. After becoming a source of controversy there and raising the ire of the school’s administration, Laymon transferred to Oberlin College, where he graduated. From there, Laymon earned a fellowship to study in the MFA fiction-writing program at Indiana University. He also taught summer school at Indiana University while studying there.

Laymon has held numerous jobs, including phone book delivery person, server, healthcare assistant, knife salesman, and Upward Bound counselor. While working on his graduate thesis, Laymon lived with his then-girlfriend, Nicole, in Emmaus, Pennsylvania.

During the time that he is revising this essay collection, Laymon is 45 years old. He lives alone in Oxford, Mississippi, where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. He has no children and no property.