David Maine was born in Hartford, Connecticut, USA on November 28, 1963, and grew up in Farmington, Connecticut. Attended Oberlin College (1981—85) and the University of Arizona (1988—91), where he graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing.

Maine relocated to Morocco in 1995 and Pakistan in 1998 . He left Pakistan in 2008 and currently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.

Early short stories appeared in the literary magazines Other Voices (1991), The Beloit Fiction Journal (1991) and West Branch (1993).

First novel The Preservationist was published by St Martin's Press in New York City in 2004, Canongate UK in 2005 (under the title The Flood) and other publishers around the world. Favorable reviews appeared in The New York Times, Time magazine, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. A retelling of the Biblical tale of Noah, the book trod a fine line between respect and irreverence for the source material. Follow-up novel Fallen (2005 in the US; 2006 in the UK) featured a somewhat darker treatment of the garden of Eden story, featuring Abel and Cain and Adam and Eve. The book's reverse chronology (it begins with Cain as an old man haunted by his brother and unwinds to the moment immediately following Adam and Eve's expulsion) was viewed as gimmicky by some critics, but overall, the book was as favorably received as the first. Fallen caused the Los Angeles Times Book Review to report that "Maine's writing is as human as it is divine."

Reviews were mixed for Maine's third Biblical retelling, 2006's The Book of Samson. The New York Times remained enthusiastic, stating that "his audacity is irresistible," but other critics were muted.