Christopher Coe was born in Pennsylvania in 1953 and raised in Portland, Oregon. As an adult he lived in both New York City and Paris.
As well as a writer, Coe also worked as a photographer and cabaret singer. His first novel, I Look Divine, was published in 1987, his second, Such Times, in 1993.
Coe died of AIDS on 6 September 1994 at his home in Manhattan.