Old wounds.
New world.
My current project, working title The Spy Who Came Home, is a literary thriller about the conflicts that arise between who we think we are and who we must be in life. Nowhere is this disconnect so acute as in the world of espionage, where dissembling, subterfuge, and betrayal are the price of admission. When I learned that the man who raised me was not my biological father, I wondered how this dynamic might play out if the person discovering such a truth were a spy. Then I amped up the tension – and the stakes – by giving my protagonist a new brother who is a sworn enemy of everything he believes in.
Featured Book
First Generation
A gritty, realistic portrait of identity forged in the space between two worlds...
A semi-autobiographical novel about a young man growing up in East L.A. in the 1960s, struggling to escape the violence of the barrio while unraveling the mystery of his war-damaged Sicilian father. First Generation is the story of a family’s journey to becoming American.
About the Author
David La Piana.
I’ve always loved language, the sounds words make, their feel in my mouth, and of course the act of writing, choosing and putting words together to tell stories. I didn’t come by this love naturally, as might happen in a book-filled home where literature was discussed around the dinner table. No, my childhood was filled with love but devoid of books. My parents worked hard, focusing only on the immediate and practical. I was an unpromising student, a bit of a troublemaker, someone who only followed rules that made sense to me – and let’s face it, most school rules make little sense to the inmates – er, students.
Yet even then I wrote – stories, poetry, I even tried my hand at drama, despite never having read, let alone seen, a play. Then I got a break, attending Berkeley for my BA and MA in Comparative Literature. Throughout my life, I have continued writing. As the novelist Josh Mohr told a class, “You write because you can’t not write.” That about sums it up.
I am fully devoted to the craft – that’s how I see it. I’m no artist, but I aspire to be a craftsman, to mold powerful, beautiful, propulsive language in the service of compelling stories. I hope you’ll join me on this journey as I share both my struggle and the results. I call this site Chapter One because I am only beginning to tell these stories.
All Books
The Catalog
From my previous career as a nonprofit strategist
