This is Erik Forrest Jackson's first book. He spent more than a decade as an executive editor for magazines including Entertainment Weekly and InStyle. As an award-winning dramatist, his work has been produced internationally and includes Like a Billion Likes (winner of the Southwest Playwriting Competition and the Chesley/Bumbalo Foundation Playwriting Award); the Neil Sedaka musical Breaking Up Is Hard to Do; Carrie, a black-comedy adaptation of Stephen King's novel; the Off Broadway comic thriller Tell-Tale (Best Play GLADD nomination); and Cheers Live on Stage, a theatrical version of the beloved TV series. His poems were featured in the Showtime film The Escape, starring Patrick Dempsey, and his articles have appeared in Glamour, W, Real Simple, Allure, and Town & Country. He grew up in Texas, studied acting and poetry at the University of Southern California, and now lives in Harlem. Gaston Leroux (1868-1927) was born in Paris, France. After leaving school, Leroux worked as a clerk in a law office and, in his free time, began writing essays and short stories. By 1890 he had become a full-time journalist, sailing the world as a correspondent. He began writing novels in the early 1900s and was inspired by Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allan Poe. In 1911, he wrote The Phantom of the Opera.