Photography: Pablo A Correa.
When Daniel Devenney first came to New Zealand, it was supposed to be for just a year, but that was 12 years ago. After falling for the country and a Kiwi man, he then endured watching the life they’d built across a decade together completely unravel.
But as his relationship imploded, his anxiety heightened, friends were lost and then a family member passed away, the Irish-born, Auckland-based author, 40, kept writing his way through it.
“My biggest fears have always been change and loss,” he reflects.
“I tend to catastrophise and as you get older, you realise that grief is part of life. We can’t stop it. It’s something we have to learn to live with.”
What he didn’t anticipate was how much the debut novel he was writing, Counting Down With Theodore Brown, would help him do exactly that. Theo’s story deals with grief and relationship breakdown head on. In fact, after losing his father in the very first chapter, the novel encourages readers to find value in every connection, even the ones that don’t last.
“I’d always believed break-ups were personal failures,” Daniel says.
“After our relationship ended, my first thought was, ‘Have I wasted 10 years of my life?’ And then I picked up my own book, reread some of the chapters and it changed my perspective. “I started thinking about all the things that relationship gave me, including living in New Zealand. Which means I would’ve never met Ron, which means I might never have gotten my book published.”,
The romance behind the pages
Ron is Ronald Andrés Molina Lozano, Daniel’s fiancé, a Colombian man he met while dating in his late thirties, after both were coming out of significant relationships. They’ve been together two years, got engaged after three months and live together in Auckland, where Daniel is already deep into writing his second novel.
Coincidentally, before he met Ronald, 43, he’d randomly started learning Spanish. And the love interest in his book speaks Spanish too.
“The parallels between me and the characters started happening,” he laughs.
“It got a bit strange.”
While Daniel’s book ended up being a balm for the anxiety he once felt, he can trace the development of its premise – a 19-year-old who, when he looks someone in the eyes, sees the exact number of days he’ll spend with that person – back to the moment in 2016 when he applied for New Zealand residency.
“I’d fallen in love with Aotearoa, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how many days I’d actually get to spend with my parents and siblings if I chose to stay. That thought knocked the wind out of me. What would I do if I knew those exact numbers?”
More than just a love story
Such an original idea has seen the book, which is categorised for young adults, draw in readers well beyond its intended demographic, which doesn’t surprise Daniel. Moving through questions of identity and sexuality, he was deliberate in writing Theo as a young man who struggles to open up.
“One of the biggest killers of young men is suicide,” he says.
“It’s because we don’t talk. We bottle things up and that’s so dangerous. Suicide has touched my life more times than I’d like. I wanted to encourage young men, and young people in general, to just talk to somebody. As long as you’re talking, you’re working through things.”
Daniel has been a bookseller for more than a decade and currently sells his own debut novel where he works at Unity Books, which leads to the occasional surreal encounter.
“Customers do purchase it from me,” he says, still sounding mildly stunned.
“I never know what to say.”
What’s next for the debut author
In August, the book launches in the UK and his Irish homeland. He hopes that, by then, the fact he’s managed to publish his first novel will have finally sunk in. In the meantime, there’s the second book to continue with, a trip to Colombia in October to meet Ronald’s family and a wedding to plan between a couple with family on two distant continents.
“We might find a location somewhere in between our home countries – or we might just elope!” laughs Daniel.
“In the past couple of years, I went from feeling like my life had just imploded to feeling like I’d won the lottery. If there’s one thing I want people to take away from the book, it’s to waste nothing. Look for the positive and if you can’t find the positive, find the lesson. Just keep going.”
Counting Down With Theodore Brown ($25, Allen & Unwin New Zealand) is on shelves now.
For the Suicide Crisis Helpline, please call 0508 TAUTOKO.
