Michael Ladner was born in Princeton, N.J., where his Viennese father was a medieval historian at the Institute for Advanced Study, alongside fellow academics Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. Having been patted on the head approvingly by the latter, Michael went on to take a B.A. from Harvard, an M.A. from New York University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University, with further studies at the San Francisco Art Institute and School of Visual Arts. He has taught American and European History, Art History, Psychology and English, and has lived mostly in Brooklyn and Manhattan. In 2006, he and his wife moved to California. In this, his third novel, he draws on his father's and grandfather's forced exile from Austria, following the Nazi Anschluss.