Born into a family of firefighters and police officers (both his grandfather that his father did the police department in New York), Largo boasts a maternal line descendants of first families Dutch who founded New Amsterdam (later New York).

Largo had a childhood and adolescence serene; college of Staten Island and graduated in environmental science while in college in Brooklyn, where he studied with the poet John Ashbery, he majored in English literature, winning the Whiteside Poetry Award.

Later he moved to 'East Village focus on teaching, publishing articles in magazines and literary opening also an art gallery. Largo also has opened a local (St. Marks Bar & Grill), from which came the inspiration for his latest book: "Genius and Heroin: The Illustrated Catalogue of Creativity, Obsession and Reckless Abandon Through the Ages" (unpublished in Italy). This bar, originally a tavern active since the thirties of the twentieth century, has become a collection point for many artists, bohemians, as shown in the video of Rolling Stones called "Waiting on a Friend".

In the mid-eighties, Largo has left New York to work on tugboats and other vessels, making the long lonely hours at the various ports to read the full Encyclopedia Britannica (then admit that he has arrived "only" to the letter U). Later, he worked as an archivist at the company Allied Artists, continued to publish short stories and poems on magazines

In the early nineties, due to some accidents and loss of some dear, Largo was set on studying the various causes of death in the United States. To obtain the information that interested him, he traveled throughout the country: this experience has culminated in the publication of "stick & Census: the illustrated encyclopedia of all the ways that you go to a better life" (Antonio Vallardi Press, 2008), which won the Bram Stoker Award for "fiction". Later he published "The Portable Obituary: How the Famous, Rich, and Powerful Really Died" (unpublished in Italy).

After spending some years in Europe to visit the places where many brilliant minds have lived and are eventually self-destroyed (the result of all this was the book "Genius & Heroin"), Large moved near Atlanta.

All these activities have not prevented Largo to marry three times, these marriages bore five children.

Michael Largo received The Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction, 2006, for Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of How We Die (HarperCollins)

The Portable Obituary (HarperCollins, 2007) was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award.

Michael Largo's work has been published and translated into 12 languages.