David James Pelzer (born December 29, 1960 in Daly City, California) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, best known for his 1995 memoir

Memoir

A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...

 of childhood abuse, A Child Called "It".
Pelzer is the son of a San Francisco fireman, Stephen Joseph Pelzer (1923–1980), who was of Austrian descent, and Catherine Roerva Christen Pelzer (1929–1992).

Pelzer was born in San Francisco, California

San Francisco, California

San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

, and was the third of five boys.