Joe DeVoy - Walking on Clouds

Joe DeVoy signed copies of his novel, Walking on Clouds, at riverrun yesterday. He doesn't really think of himself as a writer yet he says, although he does like to write.

Walking on Clouds was born out of a writer's block. "I was working on another story, a love story actually, but I'd come to a place where I didn't know what was next. I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't write anymore." Just when he was most stumped and frustrated, an entirely unrelated idea came to him. "It didn't have anything to do with the one I was writing. I kept thinking about the new idea every time I tried to continue the love story. My wife encouraged me. I developed the new ideas into this book."

DeVoy's wife is important in his life. "Family is the most important thing to me," he says. DeVoy's grandson was on hand at riverrun to see his grandfather sign books.

Joe DeVoy has lived through an experience that other writers haven't. In fact, he's lived through an experience that other people haven't. He once fell six floors down an elevator shaft. His legs were broken and crushed. I wondered if that terrifying and painful episode showed up in his book.

"No," he said. "Not in anything I've written. Recovering from something like that is slow and you can't do much of anything. It gives you a lo

t of time to think."

This novel is about something that requires a lot of thinking on the protagonist's part.

He has to figure out how what to do in an ethically complex situation.

Walking on Clouds by Joe DeVoy.