User:Michuru81
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Dustin Michael Cohenour (born April 23, 1981 in Peoria, Illinois) is an American writer commonly known by the moniker of Curtis Donnohue (a perfect anagram of Dustin Cohenour). Donnohue suffers from what he describes as "John Hughes Syndrome"; a mock disease in which he sets his stories within his hometown and adapts many elements from his life to his writings.
Donnohue’s stories are generally verbose narratives told from a first-person perspective and depict complex, three-dimensional characters in a form of tragicomedy. The cast itself is usually composed mainly of teenagers who usually go through intense and excruciating emotional trauma through the course of the story. While they come out of the experience smarter and stronger, they don’t achieve the clichéd fairy-tale like happy ending found in so many stories today.
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[edit] Early Life
Though born in Peoria, Illinois, Donnohue has spent the entirety of his life living in nearby Pekin, Illinois. Pekin and the surrounding area that make up Tazewell County seem to be the basis for Donnohue’s fictional Oubliette County- the small body that holds the towns where his stories take place. While it could be argued that all of the towns bare a resemblance to Pekin, the imagined city of Conviction seems to be the true parallel- as Conviction and Pekin are both their respective county’s seats.
Donnohue was the first child born to Cheryl Cohenour. His father abandoned the family after learning of Donnohue's conception- never to reconcile with his son; a theme common in Donnohue's stories (see Themes, below).
Curtis Donnohue showed himself at as a erudite at an early age, demonstrating an eidetic memory and teaching himself to read at three years old. Donnohue likewise continued this pattern throughout his life- as he is self-taught in many languages and with numerous musical instruments. His artistic skill is also an untrained talent that further proclaims Donnohue as a modern polymath.
Despite carrying dismally average grades through his adolecence, Donnohue's family and teachers were astonished that the youth was tackling the likes of Melville in 4th grade, Shakespeare in 6th, and Tolstoy before entering high school.
[edit] End of Adolecence
Donnohue's mother would marry Jay Sours- marking it his mother's first marriage and Sours' third. In tow was Donnohue's new step-sister and his half-brother followed not long after. Donnohue's father also married- ironically giving Donnohue a step-sister and a half-brother on his father's side as well. Jay Sours was a farmer who raised livestock and in Donnohue's 7th year he and his mother moved to the farmhouse on the outskirts of Pekin. Six years the future writer would spend living as a farmboy- raising horses, cows, goats, pigs, chickens and doves. An irrational fear of snakes and rising water levels sent Donnohue running back for the city limits.
Donnohue would attend many schools through these years leading to his attending Pekin Community High School (PCHS). In his freshman year, the young man was beginning to consider a career in art- citing John Bryne as his hero and picturing himself wearing multiple career hats as well- artists and writer. Donnohue was accepted at this time to a small art college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Unwilling to make such a move, Donnohue began taking his classes through corresbondance- stacking the additional course load on top of his studies as a high school freshman. After a year, however, Donnohue succumed to the pressure and stress mounting atop him and dropped the additional load to focus instead on his career as a high schooler.
It was in his junior year that an English teacher noticed Donnohue's writting ability. With an assignment to write a five paragraph theme on the three people you would save from the end of the world, Donnohue constructed an elaborate narrative detailing the events laid out in Revelations with frightening realism. The teacher urged him to further develope his ability- leading Donnohue to center his senior year on his writting and to plan his college years around it.
[edit] Testify
After graduation, Curtis would spend the next three years of his life out of church and disjointed with God. He eventually returned to his roots, as Donnohue himself says "coming full circle" by returning to the church he was born and raised in. Donnohue has spent the first decade of his life at Bethel Baptist Church- only to leave for Bethel's sister church through his formidable years.
In December of 2003, however, Donnohue preached for the first time at the church where his religious life began. He would have other opportunities to preach over the following years, before a falling out with friends and mentors would have him leaving.
Though Curtis eventually returned to church, he had abandoned his dream of preaching God's word from a pulpit, dedicating himself to immortalizing the gospel in his stories- many of which focus on characters who struggle in their Christian lives and find themselves of a stronger faith for their experiences. In promoting his books, Donnohue makes an effort to bring a revival to light a fire under people and help them fall in love with God all over again.
[edit] Themes
Is it widely believed that Donnohue’s recurring themes and elements may be other references to his early life. His father abandoned his family just prior to Donnohue’s birth and never reconciled with either Donnohue or his mother, likely giving cause to why so many of Donnohue’s characters have poor and often embittered relationships with their fathers. Some mirror Donnohue completely in that they have no relationship with their father and know nothing of the parent beyond the name. Most characters do find a father-son dynamic with a character with whom they have no actual relationship. It is likely this is spurred on by Donnohue’s early life as well, as he seemed to always find a surrogate father figure in many of the teachers and leaders he met growing up.
Many characters have a drive to guide and protect their younger siblings, while others are often seen as being at war with their older siblings. This may largely be attributed to Donnohue’s mother’s marriage in 1988- wherein Donnohue found himself with a step-sister and later a half-brother. Additionally, many characters find themselves going through a crisis of faith. Donnohue himself was a backslidden Christian for many years.
[edit] Naming Conventions
Donnohue often puts a deeper meaning into the names of his characters. He makes great use of certain names time after time- applying the Japanese word Michuru (みちる, literally meaning “rising tide”) to many characters as well as the name of the Biblical prophet Micaiah. Some variation of Jack Cade also makes an imprint into Donnohue’s work; the character from Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2.
However, other names have similar meanings as well. Often character’s names are small hints at their true characteristics. Some are obvious; Kaos is an alternate spelling of “chaos” and Liah is similar to “liar”. Donnohue has been more subtle in names like Chienne, Béni, and Amy- all French words that hint at a character’s inner workings.
Most often, Donnohue works in other ways. A small example of Donnohue’s love of anagrams can be found in many of his characters’ names; for instance, Alexander Lohst’s last name is taken from “sloth”- a reference to his lazy, apathetic behavior.
[edit] Bibliography
I Can't Believe It's Not Chernobyl - A collection of short stories set within fictional Oubliette County, Illinois written during Curtis Donnohue's high school years (1995-1999). Each tale is a self-contained tale with its own unique cast of characters- a vast amount of which are angsty and often self-destructive teenagers who never quite live happy-ever-after, but at least come through the fire better than when they entered.
- Rainy Day Men
- Amazing Grace
- The Gentlemen's Code
- Eleventeen
- Memoirs of a Wife Beater
- The Astonishing Murder of Ralph Noche
- I.N.A.M.I.M.U.S.
Every Little Thing - Penned after Donnohue's high school career, the stories contained in Every Little Thing begin to take on more of a defined shape and the characters themselves are more evolved than the previous casts introduced by the author's prior works. Characters are driven by more than angst- they find themselves in situations where they struggle with impossible opponents such as themselves, death, fate, and God.
- Impulsive Choices Made in Haste
- Transfigured
- visible Incandescence
- 137 Things to Do Before You Die
- What You and I Have Been Through
- The Affectual Fervent Prayer of a Homosexual Man
Otherworld - Based on the idea of counterfactual history where a single event (known as a point of divergence) extrapolates a position where history takes a different outcome other than what is considered the norm. Early on in the series, Donnohue notes that such a genre has been explored before by distinguished persons such as Winston Churchill- who explored a counterfactual history where General Robert E. Lee stood victorious at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Donnohue’s point of divergence is found in the final moments of freedom for Jesus of Nazareth. While praying at Mount of Olives, Jesus asks that ‘this cup’ be removed from him. Otherworld interprets this as Jesus having second thoughts and possesses the question, “What if Jesus hadn’t been crucified?” The series then follows a backslidded teenaged girl who, ala Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, finds herself in a world not her own.
Though Donnohue has only thus far completed the first book in the Otherworld series, he has established a list showing his intentions to end the series at seven books and addressing working titles for each.
- The East Wind
- When Morning Gilds the Skies
- Almost Persuaded
- Learning to Lean
- Beyond the Sunset
- More than Conquerers
- The South Wind
The Regions Beyond - Despite slaving away at Otherworld, Donnohue has suggested he intends to do a trilogy of time period novels after the run of seven in Otherworld. The Regions Beyond is tentatively about a family of Japanese Christians disembarking from Japan in the late 1600s, looking for a place to simply be.
[edit] Trivia
- Donnohue has suffered from sleepwalking since he was a child.
- Curtis Donnohue began collecting PEZ dispencers in his freshman year of high school (1995) and in ten years of collecting has accumulated over three-hundred of the candy-storing figurines.
- On New Year's Day of 2000, Curtis Donnohue desided to spend one year without eating any red meat in the hopes that it would lead to a healthier lifestyle. He succeeded in spending the new year without eating meat and has renewed the resolution every year since.
- In 2003, Donnohue was diagnosed with a severe case of Rheumatic fever, leaving him with limited use of his arms and legs for several months.
[edit] External Links
- philanthropic vengeance - Curtis Donnohue's writing blog
