Recent Publicity
Publishers Weekly: Web-exclusive Review
3/19/07
This debut true crime from journalist Copeland is a thrilling guts-and-glory look inside the Israeli organized crime machine of 1980s New York City. The Israeli mafia was small—”core membership numbered fewer than twenty men”—and lacked the “codes of criminal conduct” intrinsic to their Italian and Russian counterparts; as such, it didn’t last long: “by September 1990, all the gang’s core members had either been arrested, entered the Witness Protection Program, fled the country, or been murdered.” The narrative centers on three members—de facto leader Johnny Attias and narcotics dealers Ran Efraim and Ron Gonen—but sticks closely to the perspective of Gonen, the first to get arrested and turn state’s evidence. The wild ride Copeland unfurls has all the insane highs and lows an audience familiar with Blow and Wiseguy expects, and they don’t disappoint: “Gonen was one step removed from a Colombian cocaine cartel and, in a good month, netted $100,000.” In the late 1980s, failing health and concern over his family prompted Gonen to consider retirement. When he was arrested in 1989, it was “just in time to save his life.” It would mean the end of the Israeli mafia, capping a story so entertaining that, were it not rooted in such ably handled characters—at once despicable, pitiable and human—it might be unbelievable.
The Tartan: Former Pittsburgh reporter exposes New York’s Israeli Mafia
3/26/07
“[The] reason that I like my job [is that] whoever I’m writing about, they have an interesting life, and not one that I’m interested in leading,†Copeland said. “I don’t want to be a cocaine dealer…. It’s interesting to talk to them, and seeing what life as one is really like.â€
The Jewish Advocate: Former Israeli mobster tells all
3/23/07
Pittsburgh City Paper: Mob Scenes
3/22/07
Copeland…crafted the true story of life inside the Israeli mafia with the literary style and pacing of a novel.
The World: Interview on National Public Radio
3/9/07
Anchor Marco Werman speaks with a former member of the Israeli Mafia in New York and with the author of a book about the former mobster. Ron Gonen is the subject of “Blood and Volume - Inside New York’s Israeli Mafia.” Dave Copeland is the author.
Boston Herald: All thanks to Craigslist (Inside Track)
3/8/07
“The Departed†scribe William Monahan may have won an Oscar for writing his gangster story, but Burlington author Dave Copeland, whose book about the Israeli mob has just been released, is getting a movie made about him!
Boston Globe: A book party with safety issue
3/8/07
For safety’s sake, the star of “Blood & Volume: Inside New York’s Israeli Mafia” isn’t invited to tonight’s party celebrating the book’s release. “If someone found out Ron [Gonen] was there, it could be a problem,” said author Dave Copeland, who will be at tonight’s shindig at the Living Room. Gonen is a onetime mobster who spent 18 years in the Witness Protection Program before sharing his story with Copeland, who lives in Burlington. The book, which comes out next week, puts a bull’s-eye on Gonen’s back in the US, where he’s just been booted from the program, and also in Israel. Copeland’s trying to sell the film rights for the book. ” I see him as an Ed Norton character,” said Copeland.
Jerusalem Post
3/4/07
Ron Gonen, who has spent the past 18 years in the US Witness Protection Program, has teamed up with author Dave Copeland to offer an insider’s glance into a parallel universe of crime, murder and deceit.
New York Daily News: Mob Rat Loses Hidey Hole
2/25/07
A drug dealer who helped the feds take down a vicious crew of Israeli mobsters says he has been bounced from the witness protection program because he detailed his life story in an upcoming tell-all book.
Maybe I’m Amazed: Dave’s World
2/2/07
In the future on this blog, you’ll start getting to know some folks who I think are pretty cool and who are doing some awesome things. The first in this series is a Q&A session with Dave Copeland, a fellow graduate of the MFA in Creative Nonfiction program at Goucher College. Let’s get right to the interview!
Tellhimfred.com: Interviews With Regular People
2/1/07
Dave Copeland is a writer. His book, “Blood & Volume: Inside New York’s Israeli Mafia†on life inside New York’s Israeli mafia will be released in 2007 by Barricade Books. His freelance work has appeared in Reason, the Wall Street Journal online, Boston Common and dozens of national and regional newspapers and magazines. He’s been a staff writer for the the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Dow Jones, and the Old Colony Memorial in Plymouth.
Boston Herald: Blog is voice of ‘losers’
7/7/06
As a writer Copeland, 33, said he’s received “stacks†of rejection letters from publishers and producers.
Romenesko
9/1/05
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review — bankrolled by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife — needs to treat its staff better “and to embrace its position as scrappy underdog instead of being so ashamed of it,” says former T-R newsman Dave Copeland.
Career Journal
7/11/05
Freelance Daily, an e-newsletter, lists 30 to 40 new jobs in each issue, publishing Monday through Friday, says Boston writer Dave Copeland, its publisher. Assignments come from magazines, newspapers, Web sites and corporations and range in pay from $10 to $75 an hour, or 10 cents to $3 a word. Annual subscriptions cost $29.95.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
5/18/05
Dave Copeland, a Pittsburgh-based freelance writer, used to write for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and found out that even with the disclaimer, seemingly harmless remarks can end up being brought to the attention of your boss.
Recent Articles and Commentary
The Case Against Casanova
Boston magazine
April, 2008
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He was once one of Boston’s (and People magazine’s) most eligible bachelors. This month, he’ll be back in court to face rape charges that have shocked his many admirers. But it turns out that with Gary Zerola, nothing was ever as it appeared. |
On the Waterfront
Boston Common
Spring, 2006
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South Boston is poised to become the city’s hottest neighborhood for work and play. But who will profit from the development of some of the area’s most valuable waterfront space is a story of cash, ego, and even baseball. |
No One Knows Who I Really Am
Justice
February, 2006
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Lies to your friends, isolation for your family, temptations from your past: Come peek inside life in the federal witness protection program, where even everyday tasks require life-and-death secrecy. Read a complete draft of this article. |
Trials and Tribulations
Pittsburgh City Paper
September 1, 2005
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“We don’t offer a lot of money, but we do offer a lot of opportunity,†Pittsburgh Tribune-Review deputy managing editor Jim Cuddy Jr. told me during my October 1999 job interview. Indeed, the salary was a significant pay cut from what I was making as a writer for Dow Jones in Jersey City, N.J. But once I factored in the cost of living — and once I bought into Cuddy’s portrayal of the Trib as a scrappy upstart and legitimate news organization — my decision was easy. |
Poor, Sexy Berlin
Reason
September 2004
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Berlin is the perfect storm of urban planning gone wrong: too much government money, too much top-down planning, and too great a desire to build a tourist attraction masked as a symbol. So far, the top-down planning model has produced what is at best a tourist trap, at worst an outright failure. |
The Red Sox: Unrequited Love
Wall Street Journal (sub. req.)
October 22, 2004
I was in eighth grade in 1986, and that was the fall I found out that if there’s one advantage to being a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan it’s that you learn at a very young age that life does indeed stink and that you — like World Series hopes in Boston for the past 86 autumns — do indeed die. Hopefully sometime after the Red Sox win it all, but don’t count on it.
Travel
New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington contrasts the scenic with the perilous
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
November 17, 2002
Having plans ruined by inclement weather is par for the course when hiking in New Hampshire’s Presidential Mountain Range. At its center is the 6,288-foot Mt. Washington, which lays claim to being home of the “World’s Worst Weather.”
Guerilla Tourism in Pittsburgh
BootsnAll Travel
April, 2005
First, a disclaimer: visiting old abandoned buildings - be it an empty insane asylum or the remnants of a hulking steel mill - is a potentially dangerous activity. And, without the proper permission from the property owners, it’s trespassing, which is a crime in Pennsylvania and most other states. A second disclaimer: Both of the properties covered in this article are constantly talked about as potential demolition targets, so time is running out if you want to visit them.
Backpacking Doggy Style
BootsnAll Travel
April, 2005
As a country, we’re far behind our European cousins, where dogs are frequently allowed in restaurants, on public transit and in other places where they’d be greeted with “No Dogs Allowed” signs in the United States. In fact, we seem to take it to extremes in the opposite direction, banning dogs from where they seem to be a natural fit: national forests, hiking trails and beaches.
Newspaper Columns
Dad fights cancer with gift of conversation
Pittsburgh Trib PM
June 21, 2004
Two fourth-grade bullies called our house in 1983 looking to schedule a time to pummel me for some real or imagined lunchroom transgression.
Patriots teach lesson about stadium financing
Pittsburgh Trib PM
January 1, 2004
There was no need to make arguments about the other development that would come if you built a new football stadium. There was no need for journalists to resort to the tired “if you build it, they will come” cliche to start their stories.
More Tribune PM Columns…
Older Work
CMU’s creative thinker makes a creative move
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
March 13, 2004
Richard Florida, the Carnegie Mellon University professor who became a polarizing figure with his book “Rise of the Creative Class,” is leaving Pittsburgh. Sort of.
Drivers ditch short trips
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
November 2, 2003
If you can’t find a taxi Downtown, the answer to the problem may very well be sitting in line at Pittsburgh International Airport.
Investors suing brothers
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
September 16, 2003
They were everything Pittsburgh was looking for — a new economy story that was supposed to have a happy ending.
Thrill hunters seek ghosts at Dixmont State Hospital
Pittsburgh Trib P.M.
August 25, 2003
On the telephone I told Kriss Stephens I had made a couple of visits to the abandoned Dixmont State Hospital in Kilbuck because it was an incredible place, full of history and cool, crumbling architecture, not because I believe in ghosts and haunted buildings.