Coe was born in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania, and raised in Portland, Oregon.

Educated at Columbia University, he was a classmate of Amy Hempel, David Leavitt and Anderson Ferrell.

[2] As well as a writer, Coe also worked as a photographer and cabaret singer.

Coe died of AIDS on September 6, 1994, at his home in Manhattan.

This article about a novelist of the United States born in the 1950s is a stub.