Alan Williams was born Louis William Lowenthal on June 13, 1890, in Washington, DC, of German Jewish immigrants. At age 20 he joined the Immigration Service and was assigned a post in Alaska, where he handled enough high profile cases that he was hired as personal secretary to the governor of Arizona. Leaving the world of politics behind, he moved to New York where redefined himself as Alan Williams. As Williams he wrote over 200 stories, then moved to California in the 1930s to become a novelist. His most critically acclaimed novel was Room Service, published in 1936. Williams gave up writing in the 1940s and opened a Los Angeles bookstore. After years of ill-health, he drowned off Long Beach on November 2, 1945, an apparent suicide.