Gerald Everett Jones is a freelance writer who lives in Santa Monica, California, with his wife--actress-comedienne, writer, and animal activist Georja Umano--and two Jack Russell Terrorists, Roxie and Romeo. Bonfire of the Vanderbilts is his sixth novel. Before concentrating primarily on fiction, he authored, coauthored, or ghost-wrote more than thirty business and technical books, including How to Lie with Charts. That book has become a classic for college-level courses in business math, and Jones has conducted seminars on the topic of honesty in financial presentations. He expounded on his notions of male-centered humor in his collection of short stories, Boychik Lit, which includes an essay in which he nominates novelist and poet Peter De Vries as the father of the genre. Jones authored the boychik-lit series of Rollo Hemphill's comic misadventures: My Inflatable Friend, Rubber Babes, and Farnsworth's Revenge. His next novel was Mr. Ballpoint, a father-son comedy based on the true story of the Pen Wars of 1945. Christmas Karma is his homage to Anne Tyler, whom he regards as his literary mother (John Le Carré being the father). Jones is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Dramatists Guild, Women's National Book Association, and Film Independent (FIND), as well as a past director of the Independent Writers of Southern California (IWOSC). He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the College of Letters, Wesleyan University, where he studied under novelists Peter Boynton (Stone Island), F.D. Reeve (The Red Machines), and Jerzy Kozinski (The Painted Bird, Being There). He blogs at www.boychiklit.com. He is a top reviewer on Goodreads.com and hosts a regular book review segment on KRLA 870 AM radio in Los Angeles. His reviews are also published on the Web by Splash Magazines Worldwide.