John Fox (May 26, 1952 – August 14, 1990) was an American novelist and

short-story A short story is a piece of prose fiction. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the old ...

writer. Fox was born in the

Pelham Bay Pelham Bay Park is a municipal park located in the northeast corner of the New York City borough of the Bronx. It is, at , the largest public park in New York City. The park is more than three times the size of Manhattan's Central Park. The pa ...

area of

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

and graduated from

Cardinal Hayes High School Cardinal Hayes High School is a private, Catholic high school for boys in the Concourse Village neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City, New York. The school serves the Archdiocese of New York. It is a member of the Catholic High School Athlet ...

and

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in New York City, United States. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, it became an independent college in 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehman, a former New York governor, United ...

. Fox's only novel became famous and influential. '' The Boys on the Rock'', detailed the

coming out Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBTQ people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. This is often framed and debated as a privacy issue, ...

and falling in love of a gay teenage swimmer by the name of Billy Connors. The novel is set in the heady political atmosphere of 1968. The author Edmund White described the book as “Some of the brightest, funniest, most touching writing about adolescence...And if ever a book will give straight readers an exact sense of what it's like to grow up gay, surely ''The Boys on the Rock'' will". According to his

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in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', Fox died of

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

in his

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home in 1990, aged 38. He was survived by his parents, John Sr. and Joan, also of the Bronx; a brother, James, of

Danbury Danbury ( ) is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, located approximately northeast of New York City. Danbury's population as of 2020 was 86,518. It is the third-largest city in Western Connecticut, and the seventh-largest ...

, Connecticut; and a sister, Dorothy Schmidt of Malvern, Pennsylvania.

References

* ''

''. "John Fox; Writer, 38." August 22, 1990: D23. 20th-century American novelists American male novelists AIDS-related deaths in New York (state) 1952 births 1990 deaths American male short story writers 20th-century American short story writers 20th-century American male writers People from Pelham Bay, Bronx Novelists from New York City Writers from the Bronx {{US-story-writer-stub