John Egan was born in 1922 in Hammond, Indiana, of a French mother and American father, and raised in an ethnically diverse area of Chicago. A Pearl Harbor survivor, he received a BA in business administration after the war from Mexico City College, and raised four children with his first wife while teaching school in various countries of Europe. While teaching in England he earned an MA in English Literature from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Now retired, he and his second wife, Pat, divide their time between the United Kingdom and California.