John (Jack) Xavier McCarthy was born in South Boston, Massachusetts, the oldest of four children. He later received a scholarship to Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. In the beginning of his senior year, his mother died in a car accident and in the following spring his father died suddenly from a heart attack. The day of his father's funeral Jack received a scholarship to attend Dartmouth college. At Dartmouth along with his other studies, he began his lifelong interest and study of poetry but dropped out of school as Alcohol intervened in his life. He started attending Alcoholic Anonymous meetings in 1962, stayed sober and returned to graduate from Dartmouth five years later (in 1967). He remained an active member of A.A. for the remainder of his life and would later write about his experiences in some of his best-known poems.