Former Press Writer Publishes New Book

The novel “The Piano Keys” is not autobiographical. But it’s not exactly fictional, either.

It begins with Dean receiving a voicemail from his estranged high school sweetheart, Stephanie.

“Percy’s dead,” she says. It’s the first time he’s heard her voice in three years, since their senior prom. The night the Clay brothers beat up Percy—who was black—for kissing Stephanie, Dean’s date.

Dean did nothing to stop them. Her last words to him then were, “Go to hell, Dean. You son of a bitch!”

In real life, Stephanie exists and the Clay brothers exist, as does Percy—though his character embodies three different people.

And the book’s author, Brian Bossetta, is Dean.

“Ultimately, this book is about redemption and looking back and realizing what you did wrong,” Mr. Bossetta explained during a telephone interview last week. “Though the specifics are different, that’s me. He’s me. Dean is totally me in that sense of really trying to come to terms with your past, getting caught up with your ego and trying to find peace.”

Outside of the love triangle, Mr. Bossetta’s first young adult novel, which he self published directly to Amazon, tackles themes from sportsmanship and peer pressure to racism and military service as he guides the reader back and forth between Dean’s memories and the present day.

Last year, Mr. Bossetta, a former Press reporter, wrote the bulk of the book during the dead of winter while working at the Wölffer Estate Wine Stand on Montauk Highway in Sagaponack.

“I would usually be there by myself, at the beautiful little wine stand in a vineyard,” he said. “In the winter, very few people would come in. I had the whole time to myself. No one was looking over my shoulder. I didn’t have to pretend I was working. I would just write. That was my little writer’s studio.”

The story—which intertwines Mr. Bossetta’s own childhood, career, passions and current events—had been resonating in his head for quite a few years, he said. But once he was in the right frame of mind, he said, it hit him.

He sets the novel in New Orleans, his hometown. Growing up, he went to an all-white school and played football in an all-black neighborhood of the Lower Ninth Ward.

“I experienced racism like anyone else would,” he said. “I knew a few black people who went to school, who were accepted, and saw at times they were victims of racism, whether it was slurs or the way they were treated. But there’s racism everywhere. It’s not like it’s different because it’s in the South. The racist elements in the book are just things that I’ve seen and then exaggerated. I heightened them.”

Years later, his first job as a newspaper reporter in Louisiana brought him to the home of a fallen black marine. He had been killed in Iraq. He was only 19.

In the book, Percy is shot by a sniper in Iraq. And he is also a marine—just 20.

“He went into this so-called ‘safe house’ and he shot this terrorist before he could blow up the house, and he did save the lives of all the other marines,” Mr. Bossetta said of the real-life Percy. “He got shot and shot the terrorist before he died, unlike Percy who survived it and was killed later. All that was real. That’s what I’d learned about this man.”

For the assignment, Mr. Bossetta spoke with his family and took a tour of the house. He saw the marine’s medals, gloves, hat and Purple Hearts, which are decorations awarded in the name of the president to those who have been wounded or killed while serving.

It’s a scene he re-creates in “The Piano Keys.”

“I remember walking through the house and saying, ‘Oh my God,’” Mr. Bossetta said. “It became so real to me. Percy, in real life, is a few different people. There’s a Percy who is not black. I put them into one character. They are people who had his experiences, who did what he did as a soldier, football player and human being.”

Mr. Bossetta’s nephew, Bobby Brandt, who served as a soldier in Afghanistan, influenced a large chunk of Percy’s character, as did the author’s brother, Patrick, who was a helicopter pilot in Iraq.

“Bobby was on the ground doing what Percy was doing,” Mr. Bossetta said. “He’s just selfless. He doesn’t talk about it, has no bravado about it. He just gets the job done. He doesn’t wear it on his sleeve. He doesn’t talk about it. He doesn’t have to prove he’s tough. He’s just a great guy and would do anything for anybody.”

The book also takes the readers to places that strike a nostalgic chord with the author. There is a scene with Dean and Stephanie sitting on the seawall around Lake Pontchartrain outside her house, where Mr. Bossetta lived for a year.

And after Dean hears Percy has died, he visits City Park Stadium, where the boys played high school football together. Mr. Bossetta and Dean share the same jersey number: 44.

“Whether it’s good or bad, I wanted this book to be honest. It’s a confession, that’s what it is,” he said. “I think the only way you can overcome and find redemption is to take accountability for your actions, and be truly sorry for them. That’s the only way you can seek forgiveness—not just from other people, but from yourself. It was a way of doing it for me, personally. It was cathartic for me.”

Brian Bossetta will give a talk on Thursday, May 24, from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Hampton Bays Public Library. Admission is free. For more information, call 728-6241 or visit hbay.suffolk.lib.ny.us.