MEXICO — A former Mexico man has taken a tragic event and turned it into a fictionalized, fast-moving thriller.

Ray Doyen, a 1961 graduate of Mexico High School who now lives in North Carolina, recently published his first novel, “A Father’s Anguish.”

The book is based on the kidnapping, beating and repeated raping of his daughter while she was attending a nursing program at an upstate New York college in the early 1990s.

“I wanted to kill that man, but I couldn’t. I killed him with my pen,” he said of the thriller in a telephone interview.

A couple of years after the horrific event, Doyen started writing the book with pencil and paper. It took five years to write. When he couldn’t find a publisher, it sat on a shelf for another five years.

Then a couple of years ago, he decided to self-publish under iUniverse Press. It became available in October through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, from Doyen through his Web site, www.fathersanguish.com and, locally, at Bartash’s in Rumford.

“Writing the book was very cathartic,” he said.

His daughter, now married with two small children, eventually became a police officer. Now, she is studying to become a teacher.

Doyen, a graduate of the University of Maine and the Pennsylvania College of Podiatric Medicine, eventually founded a sea wall company. He is now retired.

While a podiatrist, he discovered that he was being stalked. That situation was eventually resolved. It is now providing him with the storyline for his next novel. He’s about three-quarters of the way through the novel and hopes to finish it in another year.

Doyen held a book signing at Bartash’s in Rumford while home recently. “I saw people I haven’t seen in years,” he said.

He and his wife, Carol Fuller Doyen, who graduated from Stephens High
School in Rumford, visit the area at least once a year to see
relatives and the former family chicken farm in the hamlet of Hale,
where his sister, Dawn Canwell, now lives. Nieces, nephews and siblings
of the couple also live in the area.

eadams@sunjournal.com

Ray “R.W.” Doyen works on a second novel in his North Carolina home. The former Mexico man recently published his first novel, “A Father’s Anguish,” which tells a fictionalized story of the rape of his daughter and its aftermath.

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