R. J. Lee was born and grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, and graduated from Sewanee (University of the South) with a B.A. in English and Creative Writing. Though he now lives in Oxford, Mississippi, he lived for thirty years in New Orleans during which he worked in journalism, advertising, and tourist commission work writing and publishing 16 novels from 1992 to the present. The Majestic Leo Marble is his 17th book.