A frequent contributor to the Boston Globe, Boston Herald and History Magazine, David is also a published and produced playwright, and a popular lecturer on a variety of historical subjects. Inseparable is his debut novel.

Bee: Welcome to BookPleasures.com David.  Thank you for taking part in this interview.

David: Thank YOU for your interest. 

Bee: How completely do you develop your characters and their surroundings before beginning to write?

David: Before I began writing I wanted to ground myself in the story of Alcatraz and the escape, so I found a few non-fiction books on the prison which described the gritty details of life on The Rock.

The FBI's website was a treasure trove of pictures and details of the actual escape. They also posted documents from the escape, including papers found floating in the Bay. Oh, and the company which runs the very popular Alcatraz Cruise has an extraordinary website with many more details about life – and death – on “The Rock”

After I found a possible landing spot for the inmates I then dove into the story of the quirky, unique town of Sausalito, which I describe as one of my book's main characters.

I found three excellent Arcadia publications (Houseboats of Sausalito, Sausalito, and Marinship) filled with pictures of the town including many from the era in which the book takes place.

Then, through Facebook, I found some wonderful Sausalito residents who generously shared memories of their town.

One of those interviews helped me develop an angle for my protagonist's mother which fit perfectly into the narrative and provided additional impetus for Tommy, her son, to attempt to help the escapees.

Bee: What is your favorite scene in Inseparable and why?

David:  It would be the very beginning of the story, because it reminds of the moment, I first conjured the idea for the novel. Okay, so like millions of people I have been to Alcatraz -  as a tourist of course.

Part of the tour takes you into the same exercise yard where they actually filmed some of the scenes from the Clint Eastwood movie, Escape from Alcatraz, which I had seen years earlier.

It was there in the exercise yard one of the guides told us how, on certain nights, the sounds of music and laughter - and women - could be heard by frustrated inmates in their cells.

And  as I stood in that exercise yard looking at the Golden Gate bridge off in the  distance and San Francisco just a mile south the idea popped into my head. What  if the men had survived?  

At that moment my wife and daughter (who had recently become a  teenager) joined me on those steps. Anyone who has a teen knows how they strain at their leash and will take almost any opportunity to assert their independence, my daughter, no exception.

The two experiences... Alcatraz and raising a teenager... came together in my mind to create this idea of having a teenager (straining at his leash) help the Anglin brothers to freedom. 

This why my favorite part of the book are these lines which kick off the adventure:

“San Francisco was the cruelest trick ever played on the prisoners of Alcatraz Island.

The city was less than two miles away, so close if the wind was just right the cons could hear music and voices and laughter emanating from that glittering jewel of a city.

On those nights John Anglin, prisoner number AZ1476, lay in his cot and covered his ears with a pillow because he couldn't bear the sound of all those happy, free voices. But tonight, as he stood at the water's edge of Alcatraz Island, he strained into the breeze, wanting to hear all those sounds because soon he, too, would be free.”

Bee: The cover is stunning; it fits so well with the novel. How did that happen?

David: All the credit goes to Ellie Bockert Augsburger of Creative Digital Studios. I still get a chill thinking about the first time I saw her team's brilliant, haunting artwork, which perfectly captures the theme of my book.

Bee: I can tell from reading Inseparable that there was a lot of research involved.  Including that, how long did the book take you to complete from concept to fruition?

David: About 17 months. The first two, as I've explained, were spent researching the facts behind the escape as well as the locales (Limepoint Lighthouse, the forts, the houseboats) where much of the action takes place.

Bee: How has being a father impacted your writing?

David: My daughter was 23 when I started writing INSEPARABLE. She was, by then, an adult and begun her career and (if I may brag for a moment) was really crushing it.

But just like when she was a youngster, I still felt the fatherly instinct to set the best example possible; to pick a goal and work hard to achieve it – no matter how difficult it gets.

And there were times I questioned whether I could actually do this and do it well. It was great motivation.

Bee: What writers have you drawn inspiration from?

David: Pete Hamill's Snow in August still brings me joy every time I read it. Ray Bradbury's short story The Sound of Summer Running is as perfect, sweet, and lyrical a piece of fiction as I have ever read.

But history is my passion, and I am drawn to writers who clearly enjoy telling a story. The books of David McCollough, Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin are among many who really know how to make long-gone people and places seems as familiar as our home towns.

Bee: Knowing that Inseparable is your first work of fiction, please share/contrast your experience between writing historical fiction and non-fiction.  Do you think you will write more fiction in the future?

David: I would say fiction – even fiction based on actual events – is a lot harder than straight non-fiction history. Mostly because for non-fiction I just need to tell the story that actually happened. The hard work of figuring out the plot has already been done. I get the fun of telling someone else's story.

Fiction... wow, it is really hard. The book which finally made it to print was the fourth MAJOR revision as I kept running into dead ends and plot conflicts which had to be fixed. Several times I had to say goodbye to thousands of words I had just written. 

That having been said, after I am done with the non-fiction history I am currently researching (see http://www.bambinomusical.com/LittleBabyVictory/index.html for the details) I do have this idea for another novel. Not so dependent on actual history but still based on a real place at a very interesting time.

Bee: I see from your bio that you wrote a book with your father.  How did that come about?  Can you share some of your experience working with your father?

David: Dad's favorite president was Teddy Roosevelt. Just like Teddy, Dad was a city boy who loved nature. Dad was also of the generation of men who revered manly men – Hemingway... Jack Dempsey (and other prize fighters)... and Roosevelt.

We lived on Long Island and must have visited Sagamore Hill a dozen times. It's an amazing place but with stuffed heads on every wall and skins on every floor it's a conservationist's nightmare.

But Dad loved it. In 1968 he wrote (and got published) the first guide to tourist and historical locations on Long Island. (Our family saw every place George Washington slept, slipped, and schlepped.)

So, after my first book Welcome to Scottlay Square  came out he suggested a collaboration on a book on the presidents and their associated landmarks. 

Bee: What book/s are you currently reading?

David: The two most recent were about Harry Truman. I've probably read more books on him than any other president because I'm fascinated by the immediate post-war period, as it was the time when my parents were young and filled with so much hope and enthusiasm for the future.

One was The Accidental President: Harry Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World by A. J. Baime and, when I got to the end my Kindle recommended Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure by Matthew Algeo.

Wow, what a treat! A combination travel guide, presidential history but, even more, a look at how America has – and has not – changed since Harry and Bess Truman drove themselves from Missouri to New York in 1953.

 I finished the excellent Excellent Adventure a few weeks ago and now taking a break from history to read my favorite living sports writer, Bob Ryan's new book In Scoring Position; 40 Years of a Baseball Love Affair. 

Bee: Are you currently working on any new writing projects? 

David: I recently began work on a compelling, unsolved mystery which began in Boston on VJ Day (Victory over Japan Day), August 15, 1945.

On that day, in the midst of a raucous city-wide celebration of the end of the war, a baby boy was abandoned on the Boston Common, left in the arms of a twelve-year-old boy.

I wrote a column in 2005 for the Boston Globe on the child, who was named "Baby Victory" by the press of the day.

What I didn't know was that the baby boy was adopted in 1951.  He later married and had two daughters, one of whom contacted me after reading my 2005 column.

We recently began collaboration on a book about her search for the identity of her grandmother.

Bee: Thanks again and good luck with Inseparable and any future endeavors.

David: THANK YOU! This was fun.

Follow Here To Read Bee's Review of Inseparable: An Alcatraz Escape Adventure