Ilana Berry was fresh out of college and living abroad in Prague in 1998 when she realized that everyone she knew was working on a novel. “I tried my hand at it, but at 22 years old, I didn’t have anything to write about. I needed some life experience,” says Berry, who grew up in Reston and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in 1994.
Life eventually delivered that experience, including six years as a CIA operations officer. “It’s a fancy title for spy — I was in the field as a spy,” she says. Fast-forward to May 2023, and Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, has released Berry’s debut novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow, under the pen name I.S. Berry.
The novel introduces Shane Collins, a weary CIA spy on his final tour, who gets immersed in the Arab Spring turmoil while stationed in Bahrain in 2012. Early reviews include praise from bestselling authors in the genre: Joseph Kanon, Istanbul Passage and The Berlin Exchange; Ian Caldwell, The Fifth Gospel; and Joseph Weisberg, creator of the TV series The Americans.
Berry served in wartime Baghdad and other locations before she resigned in 2008. “I didn’t love the job, to be honest, and that comes out in my book, which figuratively carries a lot of my experiences as a spy. It’s a dark profession and was not a great fit for me.” In 2010, she married her husband, Rick, and they have a son, Zev. Rick’s job took them to Bahrain.
“I was a mom, not a spy, in Bahrain. I would be strolling my baby around and suddenly a protest would erupt, so I would have to run to avoid the tear gas,” she recalls. “Not a great place to raise a kid.” The family now lives in Fairfax Station, and Zev is a rising eighth grader.
Berry’s characters do not represent specific people she knew, but true events and landmarks inspired the story. “I packed it with realistic details, using actual street and landmark names, and the geopolitical setting includes events that really happened.”
Berry wrote much of the book at the Huntsman Square shopping center Starbucks in Springfield. “I would drop my son off at school and write all day. The baristas there followed my journey and remain some of my biggest cheerleaders.”
A mandatory step involved presenting the manuscript to the CIA’s publications review board before anyone, including Berry’s husband or editor, laid eyes on it. “There really aren’t many actual spies who become novelists,” she says. “I think I might be the only female spy turned spy novelist in America because it’s such a heavily male genre.
“My goal was to write a realistic spy novel that describes the real nuts and bolts of the trade craft — not a glamorous tale with spies scaling roofs, jumping from balconies, and stealing cars for fast getaways. I wanted a literary, cerebral thriller.”
Despite no formal training as a fiction writer, Berry nabbed a major publisher. “I read that I should identify literary agents who represented authors of books similar to mine, so I used my spy skills and figured it out,” she laughs. Berry ended up receiving multiple offers for representation.
“I discovered that writing dialogue is really about inhabiting a character,” she says. “Once you figure out who your characters are and develop their backstories, the dialogue kind of tumbles out.”
When not writing, Berry and her family enjoy hiking at Burke Lake, Mason Neck, and Webb Nature Sanctuary in Clifton. “We love to explore Clifton and are big fans of Peterson’s Ice Cream Depot and Môtier French Pastry & Cuisine. Another family favorite has been attending George Mason University’s Galileo’s Science Cafe. “My son is into math and science, and they give these amazing lectures with free dinner.”
Ilana Berry is already working on another spy novel. “The first in a series, I hope,” she says. “Of all the jobs I’ve had, I think writing is the best fit for me. Spying is in my blood, but I’m better off writing about it than actually doing it.”
Feature image courtesy of Ilana Berry and Atria Books
This story originally ran in our July issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
