Who

Located somewhere on the literary axis between Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote, Junger is the best-selling author of The Perfect Storm and Death in Belmont.

Backstory

Junger grew up in suburban New England near the port town depicted in The Perfect Storm; his father was a Russo-Austrian physicist, his mother an Ohio-born artist. After graduating from Wesleyan, he worked for a tree-removal company before a chainsaw accident convinced him to switch careers. He started writing freelance articles, focusing on, as he put it, people "on the extremes." After his essay "The Storm" appeared in Outside magazine, W.W. Norton offered him a book contract—and a modest $35,000 advance—for the full-length version. The Perfect Storm, about a fishing boat and its doomed crew, was published in 1997 to massive commercial success, spending more than 30 weeks on the Times bestseller list; in 2000, it was made into a Wolfgang Peterson-directed film starring Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney.

Recently

He published A Death in Belmont, about the Boston strangler murders—which also occurred near his childhood home—in 2006. He also continues to regularly write for Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine covering conflict regions around the world, including Bosnia, Liberia, and Afghanistan.

Drama

The success of The Perfect Storm was somewhat marred by a chorus of critics who called the author's facts into question. Junger admitted there were problems with inaccuracies, saying: "It's my first book, I'm a year late with the manuscript, and that panicked me. I should have, I know now, insisted on a couple more months to double-check everything."

Close call

Junger was accused of being a spy in Liberia in 2003 in the midst of chaos in the capital city of Monrovia. He was also shot at in Afghanistan in 2006.

Personal

The man named in 1997 as People's "Sexiest Author" met his wife, Daniela, a former consultant to the UN, at a lecture he gave about prostitute trafficking in Eastern Europe. They live on the southwestern edge of Midtown and can often be found at the Half-King, the literary pub at 23rd St. and 10th Ave that Junger co-owns with documentary filmmaker Nanette Burstein and novelist Scott Anderson.