Levison graduated from Villanova University, where he received an English degree that became part of the premise for his first commercial success, the memoir A Working Stiff's Manifesto.
The film stars Reda Kateb and Léa Drucker, and was directed by Gilles Bannier.
His father abandoned the family for several years and went to work in the United States, and Levison's mother relied heavily on the British social welfare network during his childhood.
In 1971, his parents reconciled and the family came to live in the United States, and eventually settled in Merion, Pennsylvania, on Philadelphia's wealthy Main Line.
He graduated from Lower Merion High School in 1981 and returned to Scotland later that year to join the British Army.