At the age of 73, in 2000 he published his first novel; "Coney". However, at that time he had already written nonfiction works (among them "David Ben-Gurion in His Own Words"), several humor books and a play "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald".
His last name (spelled as: duchowny) means "a clergyman" in Polish.
His father was a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant, from Berdychiv, and his mother was a Polish Jewish immigrant. Both were born at a time where those countries were part of the Russian Empire.
He dropped the "h" in his name to ease pronunciation.