David Merrill Markson was born December 20, 1927, in Albany, New York, to parents Samuel and Florence Markson. He served in the US Army from 1946 to 1948. After the war, Markson attended Union College, New York, graduating with a BA in 1950, and then Columbia University for his MA, graduating in 1952. His master’s thesis was on Lowry’s Under the Volcano, and it was during his work on his thesis that he began corresponding with Lowry. That correspondence evolved into a close personal friendship which lasted until Lowry’s death in 1957. Markson’s 1952 thesis was later expanded and republished in 1978 as Malcolm Lowry’s Volcano: Myth, Symbol, Meaning, the first major study of Lowry’s Volcano.

Markson married his wife, Elaine Kretchmar, in 1956, and the couple moved to Mexico in 1958. They stayed there until 1961, during which time Markson finished a draft of his first novel, then moved back to New York where they had their two children, Johanna Lowry Markson (b. 1963) and Jed Markson (b. 1964). After selling the rights to another of his books, the Marksons moved to Spain, where they lived for some time between ca. 1970 and 1972, before returning once again to New York. Markson separated from Elaine in 1982 and later took up a relationship with Joan Semmel which lasted for ten years.

During his career, Markson worked as a journalist, book editor, and as a college instructor at Columbia University, Long Island University, and the New School, while also writing and publishing works of genre fiction (mostly westerns), poetry, plays, and, later in life, experimental novels. He passed away on June 4, 2010, in New York.