The Great Rat Race For Europe: Stories of the 357th Fighter Group Sortie Number One
Author Joey Maddox was born in Atlanta, Texas, sandwiched in between Sputnik and Explorer.  He was raised in South Louisiana during the 1960s and graduated from Hahnville High School in 1976.  Maddox attended college in Natchitoches, Louisiana, where he majored in Aviation Science.  During his 17th solo flight the author was nearly killed while practicing high speed stalls and gave up flying until 1980 when he began skydiving.  Joey Maddox graduated from Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana, in 1983 and taught elementary school for 13 years before leaving education for the petrochemical industry.  He began writing about the 357th Fighter Group in 2003 after he was befriended by Merle C. Olmsted, the official historian of the Group and since then Maddox has published two books about the 357th.  During this same period Maddox founded the Captain Fletcher E. Adams 357th Fighter Group Museum in his home town of Ida, Louisiana.  Joey Maddox is divorced and now lives in Bayou Gauche, Louisiana, with his teenage son, Clinton.--This text refers to thePaperbackedition.