Leavitt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Harold and Gloria Leavitt. Harold was a professor who taught at Stanford University and Gloria was a political activist. Leavitt graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in English in 1983. After his first book's success, he spent much of the 1990s living in Italy working and restoring an old house in Semproniano in Tuscany with his partner. He has also taught at Princeton University.
While a student at Yale, Leavitt published two stories in The New Yorker, "Territory" and "Out Here", both of which were included in his first collection, Family Dancing (nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award). Other published fiction includes the short-story collections A Place I've Never Been, Arkansas: Three Novellas and The Marble Quilt and the novels The Lost Language of Cranes, Equal Affections, While England Sleeps (finalist for the Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize), The Page Turner, Martin Bauman, The Body of Jonah Boyd and The Indian Clerk (finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award).
In 2000, Leavitt moved to Gainesville, Florida, and became a member of the Creative Writing faculty at the University of Florida as well as the founder and editor of the literary journal Subtropics.
Leavitt, who is gay, has frequently explored gay issues in his works. As a teenager, he was frequently frightened by gay novels that emphasized the ideal male body. He found this theme, and its suggestion that homoerotic fulfillment was reserved for the exceptionally beautiful young men, intrusive. His writing explores universal themes such as complex family relationships and class and sex exploitation. Illness and death are also recurrent themes in his work, inspired by his experience with his mother's cancer and death when he was growing up.
Despite writing many novels, Leavitt has said he feels more confident as a short story writer.He has been criticized for writing too quickly, which he attributes to early experiences with death convincing him that his life as a writer would be short. His work has been considered both minimalist as well as part of the literary Brat Pack, but he has made "a fierce effort to disassociate" himself from both. He considers his works too long, emotional and descriptive to be minimalist.
Leavitt’s favorite novelist is Penelope Fitzgerald, his favorite works of hers being The Beginning of Spring, The Gate of Angels and The Blue Flower. He has also been influenced by John Cheever, Alice Munro, Cynthia Ozick, Joseph Roth, W. G. Sebald, and Grace Paley, whom he credits for teaching him the importance of humble experiences in great fiction.
