Jonathan Shaw was born in Los Angeles in the 1950s, the result of a relationship between jazz legend Artie Shaw and Hollywood star Doris Dowling. During his teenage years he became addicted to heroin and was caught in a spiral of juvenile delinquency. At nineteen he decided to leave Hollywood and went to Central and South America, where he lived for years. Despite having started in journalism with Bukowski at the Los Angeles Free Press, since he settled in Mexico he began working as a tattoo artist. In 2008 he published his first novel, Narcisa, which immediately won a legion of fans including Johnny Depp, Iggy Pop and Jim Jarmusch.