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About The Author...
John Stover was born in Brockton, Mass, June 1, 1951, the fourth child of seven.
It was in Brockton that Mr. Stover spent his youth at his father’s hotel, The East Oak Hotel, observing men from the Brockton, VA Hospital. Much of Mr. Stover’s writing is culled from these dysfunctional men. As a child, he observed several unexpected, sudden and violent deaths.
As a youth of fifteen, Stover was involved in a bazaar accident that took the life of his elderly neighbor. He steadfastly maintains his innocence.
The author attended Boston University and later the University of California at Los Angeles, where he took classes in English literature and writing. Stover majored in premed while attending Boston University. He was forced to leave the university after waking up restrained in a hospital straitjacket, the result of a bad LSD trip. On that fateful, chilly evening, the author was picked up by the Boston Municipal Police running naked through the streets of Boston. It was Christmas Eve. That episode pretty much ended any thoughts of an academic or medical career.
In 1974, Mr. Stover spent a year hitchhiking around the South, working at various odd jobs, which included hopping freight cars, guessing astrological signs for money and working for local moonshiners and drug dealers. In six months, Stover logged over 20,000 miles on his thumb, sleeping under bridges, accepting the hospitality of strangers and living by his wits. Today, this living situation would be described as homeless. In 1973, it was merely living “On the Road.”
In 1975, he moved to Nantucket Island and worked for the Nantucket Historical Association. He lectured the public on early American whaling, becoming an expert on scrimshaw and Herman Melville. Later Stover worked at Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where he continued his medical training, driving an ambulance and attending to the critically ill and elderly.
In 1976, Mr. Stover moved to California where he worked as a personal assistant to Edward P. Pauley, Chairman of the Board of Regents, for the Universities of California and Treasurer of the Democratic Party. He also worked at several of the local area hospitals; UCLA Medical Center and St. John’s Hospital, among others. Stover stayed four years with Edward P. Poole, spending summers with the Pooles on their private island in Hawaii. Some of the guests who spent time on Coconut Island were Jerry Brown, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Meredith Willson, composer of “The Music Man.” The author also worked for several foreign ambassadors as well as for the Academy Award winning director Lewis Milestone.
In 1984, Mr. Stover entered the world of fashion, working for several international clothing companies, winning several awards and achieving considerable success and acclaim. In 1989, he opened his own concern, City Garment Finishers, a manufacturing company that employed as many as fifty workers.
After a personal crisis in 1998, Stover sold everything he owned to concentrate on his first love, writing. In less than two years, he has written one memoir and two novels. His personal odyssey, “The Road Runner” is his first book. It was written in six weeks.
In his first book, the author takes us on a journey of love, loss, pain and joy, delivering the reader to a destination of fatherhood, redemption, peace and acceptance. Join us on the author’s journey towards hope, his quest for knowledge, his trek into insanity and finally, ultimately, his arrival upon the threshold of serenity.
The author’s second book, Common Cents, is a Civil War novel that mirrors the homeless situation of modern America. Common Cents is a futuristic tale concerning a possible second Civil War; paralleling the American Civil War and its issues of slavery and bondage with the conditions of the homeless that exist today in modern America. The author considers the homeless problem in this country a National disgrace.
In-Sight the author’s third book is a new-age, science fiction story about a dysfunctional time-traveler who is able to journey in and out of his own life, both past and present. This time-trekker is also able to “jump” into distant ancestry; descendents in the past and heirs to the future.
The author has taken the popular concept of time traveling and added his own unique vision of cross-addiction, genealogical molding and familial balance. The reader will long remember the characters that weave in and out of time during the time-traveler’s journey.
A Zen-type approach to destiny, a Christian sensitivity towards forgiveness and a futuristic bent regarding time and space, combine to bring the reader headlong into an absorbing and harrowing tale of time-twists and family developments that will both haunt and fascinate.
The Men’s Group is the author’s sexual oeuvre. Taking personal experience from a men’s discussion group, the author relates a hilarious tale of a sexually a compulsive man, desperately seeking help for his problem. When the author joined the group, it consisted of four heterosexual men and two gay men. When the author left the group, it was comprised of two straight men and four gay men. They were the same men. Mr. Stover was one of the straight men. The other men in the group see the protagonist’s exploits as heroic, never seeing the actual damage being done by his constant pursuit of women. The colorful characters include the six men of the group, each seeking their own sexual compass as well as (among others) a teen-age hermaphrodite, an older woman who seduces the young man, a former girlfriend of his fathers, a stunning heiress who confuses pain with love, a college professor and a double amputee.
On Labor Day, 2008, the author was in a terrible surfing accident. He broke his neck, fracturing two vertebrae; the C4 and C5. John’s daughter pulled him out of the ocean and rode with him in an ambulance to the hospital. The doctor told Mr. Stover he might never walk again and if he moved, he could die. After the initial paralysis wore off, the author was laid up for four months.
The author lost everything he owned, including his long-term sobriety, house, business and personal belongings. After a two-year slide, the author ended up at the Midnight Mission on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, where he reclaimed his sobriety and life. The author celebrated another year of sobriety in the fall of 2012. He has recently finished his seventh, either and ninth books, the Love Rescue Me Trilogy; a love story partially set in a Los Angeles mission between a volunteer and her long lost love, Jack, The Saint, St. Clair. Jack is a boxer and guitar player, and a survivor of 9/11. He has fallen on hard times as a result of the trauma and the ensuing fallout.
Book One, Love Scars follows Jack and Diane as they meet in college, set up house and fall deeper and deeper in love, pledging their eternal love for one another, no matter what happens. Jack is forced to flee after partaking in a deadly politically motivated bank robbery. Diane moves to Paris and unbeknownst to Jack, has their baby.
Love Scars, Book Two follows the two lovers as they live their parallel but separate lives; always thinking of the other, but because shit and life happens, they are unable to reconnect.
In Book Three, Love Is All You Need, the couple is finally reunited and combines their resources to help others less fortunate than themselves. This book explores the strengths and pitfalls of 12 Step groups and false idols. The three books introduce the reader to many colorful and unforgettable characters, span several continents and take place over thirty-five plus years.
The author continues to champion and write about the plight of the homeless. He often speaks at various locations around the country. In August 2014, John Stover will chair a homeless symposium, along with several participants from both the LA and Midnight Missions, the LA Times and radio and television personalities, at the Taber Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles.
Mr. Stover has one child, a daughter, Katy. He was very active in raising his child. Fourteen-year-old Katy Stover contributed the cover for The Road Runner, his first book. Katy has graduated from the University of California in Santa Barbara with honors. She lives in Washington D.C. and teaches at an inner city school for the Bill Gate’s affiliated Teach for America Foundation. The young Ms. Stover is carrying on within the family’s tradition of teaching which dates back to the author’s maternal grandmother, Katy Dunn. Mr. Stover is enormously proud of Katy Stover; of her indescribable beauty, her enormous heart and her staggering intellect.
Mr. Stover is single and lives in Los Angeles, CA.