CHS alum honors best friend’s legacy with book dedication

By Mary Ann Price

This story originally appeared in the April 4 edition of the Canton Citizen.

Donovan Lewis met Maureen Ryan when they were freshmen at Bridgewater State University. Ryan had Loeys-Dietz syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects connective tissue. Their deep friendship and Ryan’s passing at the age of 27 led Lewis to write his first book, The Balefire Express.

After graduating from Bridgewater State, Lewis, a 2010 graduate of Canton High School, began a career as a charter pilot, ferrying wealthy and well-known passengers up and down the East Coast and even across the country. Ryan was Lewis’s closest friend. “The best person you ever knew,” he said of her, “always volunteering for charities.”

Ryan did not let her illness stop her from attending college and later nursing school. Loeys-Dietz left her frail and needing to be admitted to the hospital, but she always managed to recover until about a year before the start of COVID-19.

During her last hospitalization, Ryan was placed on a ventilator and Lewis realized that his friend would likely not regain the same level of independence that she had had in earlier years. Ryan could also see that as hospital wards shut down due to COVID, she might die alone; she made the decision to go on hospice at home. Lewis left his home in Connecticut and returned to Massachusetts, managing to spend much of the last week of Ryan’s life with her.

“What do you say to your friend in that moment?” Lewis said. “So I just told her that if she wasn’t going to be around for all the adventures we had planned, that I would try to live enough for the both of us.”

During their friendship, Lewis and Ryan enjoyed spending time hanging out together or going somewhere to sing karaoke. They wanted to travel and see different sights, but they knew that Loeys-Dietz made that impossible for them. Still, they had dreams.

“She’s a lot of the reason I get up in the morning,” Lewis said, “because you look at time a lot differently when you know that every moment you have is a moment someone else doesn’t have. It definitely has served to motivate me to get out of my shell and try new things. I’m trying to do a lot of the things I know she would have wanted to do if she had had the health and ability to do so.”

After Ryan’s passing, Lewis went back to Connecticut and resumed his career. But even though he loved flying and it was lucrative, he realized that he missed being with his family and friends. “So I ended up hanging up my wings and walking away from aviation, which is one of the tougher things I’ve ever had to do,” he said.

He returned to Canton, moved in with his parents, and started applying for jobs. He also played games online with his friends. “We’re playing one of these games, like Dungeons and Dragons, over the computer, and that’s how I got the idea for the story basically,” he said. “We had a cart, but no horses, and we were being chased by a bunch of zombies.” A friend suggested that they should have the zombies push the cart.

“I was like, ‘Huh,’” Lewis said. “They don’t get tired and you don’t need to feed them. He decided to take the idea of the zombies and start a short story. Within a year, Lewis had both a job and a manuscript that was 140,000 words in length. It was then that he first thought about publishing his work, recalling that he had told Ryan that he would do as much living as possible. Stillwater River Publications published The Balefire Express, which is dedicated to Ryan, on August 23, 2023.

Amazon offers a brief peek at the novel through the eyes of Winona, the protagonist. “Winona, though young, thought she had seen it all in her time as a courier: undead hordes, bandit attacks, whiteout blizzards, and more. But when tasked with transporting medicine to a remote northern city, she stumbles onto something far more sinister, a growing power that will shake the foundations of everything she believes. But there is still a job to do, and the Balefire Express always runs on time.”

Lewis wanted the title of the book to have something to do with traveling and to be a play on the Pony Express. He also really liked the idea of fire, because of what can happen when a character has to carry a magical fire everywhere. He came across the archaic word balefire, which means bonfire.

Lewis said that being able to go to amazon.com, search for his name, and see his book has been a surreal experience. He was a child who read a lot; throughout his years at Canton High and Bridgewater State, he enjoyed writing short stories. He submitted his work to the Canton Writes contest and in 2010, he won first place in the high school poetry category for “Destiny” and was featured for high school prose with “The Chase.”

A year later, he entered Canton Writes in the young adult age group and again took first place in poetry for “Fog, Ash & Fire.” He was also featured that year for a young adult prose submission titled “The Life of a Toaster.” But holding a book that he wrote and that was published is something he never expected.

As excited as he is about the book, Lewis is thrilled with the cover of The Balefire Express. Since his book is only available online in eBook and paperback formats, it was important that the cover stand out. As soon as he saw the skull with the snow — two core aspects of the book — against the black background, he knew he was looking at the cover of his first book. “I am so jazzed about how the cover turned out,” he said.

Lewis is presently working as a woodworker for Wyrmwood, a company that creates gaming supplies. His job allowed him to have the time to work on his book, which would have been challenging if he had continued flying. He wrote The Balefire Express as a stand-alone, but left room for a sequel if he gets to that point.

The most meaningful part of the book for Lewis is that he dedicated it to Ryan. “Fifty years from now, Maureen is still going to be 27,” he said. “In a used bookstore decades from now, someone could pick up the book and read the inscription and know that this woman was here and she was loved.”

Lewis said the response from family and friends has been “super positive” and he’s happy with how the book came out. “The outpouring of support has been amazing,” he said. “It is a new journey and it has been a learning experience.”

Since he completed The Balefire Express, he is finding that the world is in front of him and he has more time to do some of the things he wanted to do with Ryan. “As I move forward through life, I remember that intention and that promise, even if it’s taking a new class or hanging out with friends in a new place,” he said.

The Balefire Express is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble in both paperback and eBook formats.