Praised by "Kirkus Review" as a "compelling debut fantasy, " here is the delightfully enchanting, poignant, and illuminating novel about life, marriage, and miracles, from an exciting new voice in contemporary fiction. Print features.
David L. Robbins was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 10, 1954. He grew up in Sandston, a small town east of Richmond out by the airport. His father was among the first to sit behind the new radar screens in the air traffic control tower. Both his parents, Sam and Carol, were veterans of WWII. Sam saw action in the Pacific, especially at Pearl Harbor.
In 1976, David graduated from the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia, with a B.A. in Theater and Speech. He didn't know what to do for a living, having little real theatrical talents, so he decided to attend what he calls the "great catch-basin of unfocused over-achievers": law school. He received his Juris Doctorate at William and Mary in 1980. Robbins practiced environmental law in Columbia, S.C. for a year to the day (his father demanded back the money for law school if David practiced less than one year - he quit two weeks before the anniversary but got Sam to agree that two weeks of accumulated vacation could be included) before turning his energy to a career as a freelance writer in 1981. He began writing fiction in 1990.
Robbins has published nine novels: Souls To Keep, a cosmic love story (published by HarperCollins in 1998); War Of The Rats, set during the battle of Stalingrad (published by Bantam in 1999; the basis for the movie Enemy At The Gates); The End of War, about the fall of Berlin at the end of WWII (Bantam in 2000); Scorched Earth, placed in the American South, about a church burning and contemporary racism (Bantam, 2002); Last Citadel, set during the great tank battle of Kursk on the Eastern Front of WWII (Bantam, 2003), Liberation Road, a tale of the battle for France in WWII told through the perspectives of two minorities in the U.S. Army, a black truck driver and a rabbi chaplain (Bantam, 2005) The Assassins Gallery, (Bantam, 2006,) an alternate history political thriller supposing the assassination of FDR in 1945, and The Betrayal Game, a sequel to The Assassins Gallery revolving around the events of the Bay Of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the CIA's many attempts to kill Fidel Castro. His latest novel, Broken Jewel (Simon & Schuster, 2009) is set in the Philippines in early 1945, at the Los Baños internment camp. The novel involves the rescue of 2100 Americans before their execution by the Japanese, and the story of a Filipina "comfort woman." Broken Jewel was described by Kirkus (starred review) as "...a remarkable story, brilliantly told."
The audio version of War Of The Rats was nominated for an Audie, as one of the top three unabridged novels of 2000. Likewise, the audio of Last Citadel was named one of Library Journal's top 3 recordings of 2005. His books have appeared on the NY Times Bestseller list, and been published in sixteen languages. For his wartime novels, David has been referred to by Kirkus as "the Homer of World War II."
Robbins resides in Richmond, Virginia. He is an accomplished guitarist, playing blues for years, but now he studies Latin classical. At six feet six inches tall, he stays active with his sailboat, shooting sporting clays, weightlifting, and traveling to research his novels. He is a founding co-chair of the James River Writers, a non-profit organization in his hometown of Richmond that helps aspiring writers and students work and learn together as a writing community. He has taught at Virginia Commonwealth, and as writer-in-residence at his alma mater, the College of William and Mary. Currently, he is the chairman and co-founder of the non-profit Podium Foundation, an organization which has created a literary journal, arts website, and several literacy programs for Richmond Public High School students (PodiumFoundation.com). His website address is Davidlrobbins.com.
