For Michigan resident Patrick
Dilloway, the life of Frost Devereaux was one that screamed to be
told. Orphaned at the age of three when his mother died in
a tragic accident, Devereaux went on to write a series of successful
young adult novels under the pseudonym Claire McGuffin. His world
falls apart after his wife leaves him for another woman. He finds
solace in the arms of his ex-wife’s brother, only to have
everything come crashing down again. Only one thing prevented
Dilloway from writing Devereaux’ biography.
Devereaux didn’t exist.
But in these days of bestselling literary frauds, such a minor detail
wouldn’t stop Dilloway. For his novel,
Where You Belong,
Dilloway decided to give life to his protagonist by creating a copycat
Wikipedia page (which Dilloway dubbed Wukipedia) complete with
links to one of Devereaux’s short stories and other
“Wukipedia” pages detailing Devereaux’s books.
“Devereaux is very much a product of our modern society,”
explains Dilloway, “so it was important to give him a real
presence. The idea behind the website, whoisfrostdevereaux.com,
is to establish this character as a real entity, even if he isn’t
a real person.”
An accountant by trade, Dilloway earned a degree in Business
Administration from Saginaw Valley State University. He caught
the writing bug early, winning his first writing contest at the young
age of eight when he entered a competition sponsored by a local
television station. Most recently, he sold the electronic
publishing rights to his young adult novel
Forever Young to e-publisher
Public Bookshelf.
Where You Belong is Dilloway’s debut
novel in print.
Inspired by the works of John Irving,
Where You Belong deals with the
topic of gay marriage. Despite the dark comedic aspects of the
novel, the message is a serious one.
“I was disgusted when Michigan made gay marriage
unconstitutional,” says Dilloway. “The reason people
object to it is on moral and religious grounds, but to me those
aren’t legal reasons. There’s no legal reason that two
consenting adults who aren’t related shouldn’t be allowed
to marry each other. So I decided to write this story about a guy
who fails spectacularly at marrying both sexes. The point being that
marriages fail because of the people involved, not their anatomy.”
The book is available from
Amazon.