Michael Fraenkel was born in Kopul, Lithuania, and immigrated with his parents to New York City in 1903 when he was eight years old. Among his relatives was the great Yiddish writer Mendele Mocher Seforim (Solomon Jacob Abramowitsch, 1836-1917). Fraenkel early in life decided to be a writer. After graduation from the City College of New York, he entered the book trade, selling encyclopedias and remaindered books. By 1926 he had attained enough financial security to go to Paris and write. During the next twelve years he spent considerable time in Paris, where his circle of friends included Henry Miller, Walter Lowenfels, Anais Nin, and Alfred Perles.

Although he and Walter Lowenfels met in 1928, they did not become close friends until 1929. By this time Fraenkel had written a draft of Werther's Younger Brother (1930), the first formulation of his ideas about death, and Lowenfels had completed USA with Music (1930), a play...