Frank Norris, author of McTeague and The Octopus, grew up in Oakland and San Francisco. He attended the University of California for four years, but failed to graduate because of poor grades in mathematics. After spending a year studying literature at Harvard, Norris left for South Africa to report on the Boer War. Two years later he returned to San Francisco. From April 1896 until he moved to New York in 1898, he was the assistant editor of a weekly periodical, The Wave. On Thursday June 18, 1896, Frank Norris took the train to Santa Cruz where the Venetian Carnival was in full swing.