Frederick "Fred" Exley was a critically lauded, if not bestselling, author. He was nominated for a National Book Award for A Fan's Notes, and received the William Faulkner Award for best first novel, as well as the Rosenthal Award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters

He was a guest lecturer at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1972 and won a Playboy Silver medal award in 1974 for best non-fiction piece for "Saint Gloria & The Troll," an excerpt from his book Pages From Cold Island.

His later work also earned him a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, a Harper-Saxton Fellowship, and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Exley died of a stroke at 62 in 1992.