Coover was born in Charles City, Iowa. He attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale, received his B.A. in Slavic Studies from Indiana University in 1955, then served in the United States Navy. He received an M.A. in General Studies in the Humanities from the University of Chicago in 1965. Coover has served as a teacher or writer in residence at many universities.

Coover's first novel was The Origin of the Brunists, in which the sole survivor of a mine disaster starts a religious cult. His second book, The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., deals with the role of the creator. The eponymous Waugh, a shy, lonely accountant, creates a baseball game in which rolls of the dice determine every play, and dreams up players to attach those results to.

Coover's best-known work, The Public Burning, deals with the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in terms that have been called magic realism. Half of the book is devoted to the mythic hero Uncle Sam of tall tales, dealing with the equally fantastic Phantom, who represents international Communism. The alternate chapters portray the efforts of Richard Nixon to find what is really going on amidst the welter of narratives.

A later novella, Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears offers an alternate Nixon, one who is devoted to football and sex with the same doggedness with which he pursued political success in this reality. The theme anthology A Night at the Movies includes the story "You Must Remember This", a piece about Casablanca that features an explicit description of what Rick and Ilsa did when the camera wasn't on them. Pinocchio in Venice returns to mythical themes.

Coover is one of the founders of the Electronic Literature Organization. In 1987 he was chosen as the winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story. Coover is indeed one of the foremost short story writers of the postmodern period, as exemplified by the "Seven Exemplary Fictions" contained in his 1969 book Pricksongs and Descants.

• NOIR (2010)
• A Child Again (2005)
• Stepmother (2004)
• The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (Director's Cut) (2002)
• The Grand Hotels (of Joseph Cornell) (2002)
• Ghost Town (1998)
• John's Wife (1996)
• Briar Rose (1996)
• The End of Books (1992) (essay)
• Dr. Chen's Amazing Adventure (1991)
• Pinocchio in Venice (1991)
• Whatever Happened to Gloomy Gus of the Chicago Bears (1987)
• A Night at the Movies or, You Must Remember This (1987)
• Gerald's Party (1986)
• In Bed One Night & Other Brief Encounters (1983) (short fiction)
• Spanking the Maid (1982)
• A Political Fable (1980)
• The Public Burning (1977)
• A Theological Position (1972) (plays)
• The Babysitter (1969) (short fiction)
• Pricksongs & Descants (1969) (short fiction)
• The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. (1968)
• The Origin of the Brunists (1966)

Short stories

• "White-Bread Jesus" Harper's Magazine 317 [1903] (December 2008): 79-88