Pascal hails from Chicago's southeast side. The heavily industrial area, once known for its burgeoning steel mills, turned later into part of The Rust Belt, but provided Pascal his earliest writing inspiration. Neighborhoods with trademark brick bungalows and Cape Cod style homes were owned by mostly first and second generation European immigrants, who fastidiously tended impeccably, manicured lawns.
Early influences were the classics, writers like Poe, Dickens, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Hemingway, Sinclair, introduced to him during high school more...
