Semi-Charmed Semi-Sequel
Keith Donohue further weaves ‘Stolen Child’s’ threads of mysticism in ‘Angels of Destruction’
By Brian Truitt
Author Keith Donohue says his second novel, “Angels of Destruction,” spawned from readers’ reactions to his first, “The Stolen Child.” Courtesy of Shaye Areheart Books
If Vladimir Nabokov was indeed right when he wrote, “The truth is that great novels are great fairy tales,” then best-selling area novelist Keith Donohue might really be on to something here.
And yes, even though his business card officially calls him the director of communications for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (in other words, the grant-making arm of the U.S. National Archives in Washington), Donohue, 49, does consider himself a true novelist. So does the rest of the world—his 2006 magical allegory on identity and childhood, “The Stolen Child,” won phenomenal reviews.
So armed with that long title and all the duties that come with it, where does he have time to write? On the Metro, naturally. “I have about a half hour each way, and I try to pack it in during the subway ride,” said the Pennsylvania native, who always writes his first drafts out using pen and paper. “And at lunchtime, I’ll go out, grab a table, eat some lunch and knock off a couple hundred words. If you do that every day, by the end of a year, you’ve got a draft.”
Donohue, of Wheaton, Md., has wanted to write ever since he was a kid, even flirting with the thought of being a Washington Post reporter after the Watergate days of Woodward and Bernstein, but didn’t get his shot at fiction until he finished his dissertation at Catholic University following a 10-year stint to earn his Ph.D. The result of this pent-up creativity was “The Stolen Child,” which follows a changeling, the kidnapped boy he replaced in the real world and the path of their two lives’ convergence over time.
Angels of Destruction / Courtesy of Shaye Areheart Books
His second novel, “Angels of Destruction,” in stores this month, was partly inspired by fan reaction to “The Stolen Child.” In “Angels,” a 9-year-old girl with magical powers mysteriously shows up on a woman’s doorstep, answering prayers she’s had for years after her own daughter went missing. After “The Stolen Child” was released, Donohue said, “I had a lot of people tell me that they heard changelings and fairies out in the woods and so forth, and thought, Wow, that’d be pretty interesting: Why would you believe in something you can’t see?
“It’s about that whole idea of why we believe in things [for which] we have no proof.”
Does he personally believe in angels? Donohue’s keeping that secret and leaving it up to the readers to make up their own minds. But one thing he will admit to maintaining belief in is using literary fantasies to tackle such heady issues as faith and redemption. They’re “a good vehicle for the human questions that interest me,” he said. “One of the purposes of reading is to escape this world or to find its illusive enchantment, and that’s why I write the way I write.”
(March 2009)