Bruce Brooks was born in Washington, D.C. in 1950. He had a difficult childhood living both in Washington and North Carolina until he finally ran away from home to stay with his grandmother in Washington.

The protagonists of his novels frequently share experiences and living conditions similar to the one Brooks had as a youngster, including broken families and an alcoholic mother.

Brooks's difficult youth is not as prominent in Asylum for Nightface as it is in early works such as The Moves Make the Man (1984) and Midnight Hour Encores (1986; see separate entry, Vol.

7), but it is echoed in Zimmerman's efforts to cope with his drug-abusing parents and to seek a sanctuary from a life full of misery.

Brooks's first novel, The Moves Make the Man, was intended for adults, but the young protagonist featured in it led people to regard it as a...