Allegra Goodman is an American author based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in Hawaii. Goodman graduated from Punahou School in 1985 and went on to Harvard University, where she earned an A.B. degree and met her husband, David Karger. Goodman's younger sister, Paula Fraenkel, is an oncologist. Goodman and Karger live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Karger is a professor in computer science at MIT. They have four children, three boys and a girl.