Flusfeder was born in
Summit, New Jersey to Joe Flusfeder, a
Polish Jew, and a mother from the
East End of London. Born in Warsaw, Joe Flusfeder lived through the early months of the 1939 German occupation of
Warsaw. He later spent sixteen months as a prisoner of war, performing
slave labour in Siberia from 1940 to 1941. Afterwards, he fought in the
Battle of Monte Cassino. When David was six, his parents separated and he and his sister went to live with their mother in London. Joe remarried, and died in 2008, aged eighty-six. Two years later, David would write a column for
The Guardian in remembrance of his father. In the article, he recounts the sudden inspiration for and writing of the novel
A Film by Spencer Ludwig, suggesting its deeply autobiographical nature, as it follows a son's visits to a father with whom he has a complex relationship. ==Personal life==