was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, in 1923, his father from Russia, his mother from Poland. He lived in a coal mine village near Pittsburgh until 1943, when he went into the army. Living with non-Jews, he had to learn how to fight to survive and boxed in the Golden Gloves.

In WWII, he served with the 20th Armored Division as a heavy machine gunner. Near the end of the war, he participated in the liberation of the concentration camp at Dachau.
He attended the University of California, where he began to write fiction while he attended classes and drove truck. After graduation, he became an x-ray technician. His first novel was published in 1967 and he has, since then, published 17 other books—fiction and non-fiction, adult and young adult.