"In me are the memories of a boy's life, spent in that realm of enchantments. These are the things I want to tell you...."Robert McCammon delivers "a tour de force of storytelling" ("BookPage") in his award-winning masterpiece, a novel of Southern boyhood, growing up in the 1960s, that reaches far beyond that evocative landscape to touch readers universally."Boy's Life" is a richly imagined, spellbinding portrait of the magical worldview of the young -- and of innocence lost.Zephyr, Alabama, is an idyllic hometown for eleven-year-old Cory Mackenson -- a place where monsters swim the river deep and friends are forever. Then, one cold spring morning, Cory and his father witness a car plunge into a lake -- and a desperate rescue attempt brings his father face-to-face with a terrible, haunting vision of death. As Cory struggles to understand his father's pain, his eyes are slowly opened to the forces of good and evil that surround him. From an ancient mystic who can hear the dead and bewitch the living, to a violent clan of moonshiners, Cory must confront the secrets that hide in the shadows of his hometown -- for his father's sanity and his own life hang in the balance....

羅伯特•麥卡濛，1952年生於美國亞拉巴馬州。少年時代，他迷上愛倫•坡的作品，因此，他的作品有濃濃的超自然元素和哥特式小說的靈異色彩，彌漫著美國南方風情和淡淡的思鄉情緒。

從1978年起，他從驚悚類型小說展開寫作生涯。到1985年，他開始成為《紐約時報》排行榜的暢銷明星。然而，他作品不多，一種題材都隻寫瞭一本，而且每一部作品都超越瞭類型小說的局限，展現齣非凡的人物刻畫功力，比影像更逼真的描寫能力，對懸疑氣氛的掌控爐火純青。而且，即使後來躋身暢銷作傢的行列，他依然堅持自己對寫作的信念。

他說：“我從來不是為錢而寫作，也永遠不會。我辦不到。我深信，寫作是為瞭要寫齣自己想看，而且會看得入迷的書。我無法忍受重復。我隻想寫自己從來沒有寫過的東西。寫作是為瞭創造齣一個世界，創造人物，然後親手賦予他們生命。就像畫一幅人像，眼看著畫裏的人活起來瞭，那種快樂沒有任何東西比得上。”

1991年，他寫齣瞭一本“為自己而寫”的書——《奇風歲月》。

二十年來，《奇風歲月》逐漸被美國中學采用為文學教材，和《麥田裏的守望者》、《殺死一隻反舌鳥》等書並列為經典。其中，《奇風歲月》是最能讓學生讀得廢寢忘食、終生迷戀的一本。美國得剋薩斯州一位中學老師說：“這本書是每一位老師的夢想。這個令人沉迷到廢寢忘食的故事，讓很多痛恨讀書的學生變成嗜書如命的書蟲，同時完成瞭他們人生教育的第一課。”