John Fox (writer)

John Fox (May 26, 1952 – August 14, 1990) was an American novelist and short-story writer. His most famous, successful and influential novel, The Boys on the Rock, detailed the coming out and falling in love of a homosexual teenage swimmer by the name of Billy Connors.

Fox was born in the Pelham Bay area of the Bronx (where Connors's life is set) and graduated from both Cardinal Hayes High School and Lehman College.

According to his obituary in The New York Times, he died of AIDS in his Manhattan home in 1990, aged 38. He was survived by his parents, John Sr. and Joan, also of the Bronx; a brother, James, of Danbury, Connecticut; and a sister, Dorothy Schmidt of Malvern, Pennsylvania.