North Campus Professor Publishes Psychological Thriller, I Disappeared Them
In 1983, Preston L. Allen had a peculiar encounter.
As the freshman returned to his dorm at the University of Florida, a stranger struck up a conversation. Then, the man started following him.
When Allen turned left, the man turned left; if he turned right, the man turned right.
“He was hot on my heels,” Allen recalls.
As the nervous teenager entered his dorm, he was met by his roommate.
“So who’s your friend?” his roommate asked.
The man took off, never to be seen again.
Years later, when a serial killer murdered five people in Gainesville, Allen’s roommate pondered: “Do you think it’s that weird guy?”
Three decades later, Allen, now an English and creative writing professor at North Campus, used the ominous encounter as the genesis for his latest book, I Disappeared Them: A Novel.
The psychological thriller, published on April 2, follows Poe, a hardworking family man who was bullied as a child for being overweight and an orphan.
Now he protects kids from sadistic criminals—by killing them himself.
I Disappeared Them seeks to answer the question: is a serial killer born or is he made by his surroundings?
“I am not the anti-hero type. I don’t like them; I never root for them. And yet, I found myself being very sympathetic to this particular character,” said Ellen Milmed, the assistant to the chair of the English Department at North Campus. “Readers are going to see all kinds of people that they know.”
Allen’s colleague, English professor Matthew Sagorski, who has read two of Allen’s eight novels, believes I Disappeared Them adds a unique perspective to the serial killer genre.
“It’s a dark and twisted book that’s also touching and funny at times,” Sagorski said. “It’s a page turner.”
To start the creative process, Allen harnesses the voices “living in [his] head.”
I Disappeared Them began as a collection of unpublished short stories in the 1980s called The Unmentionables. Nearly two decades later, Allen revisited them and realized Poe’s character had potential for something deeper.
“He wanted to come up,” said Allen of the novel’s main character. “He was ready to play.”
The 59-year-old professor began writing the novel in 1999 and completed it last December after submitting multiple “final” versions to his publisher.
“For a writer, writing is more difficult than for everybody else,’’ Allen said. “We are mindful of every word, every sentence, every phrase we use. Most people can just sit down and write—we can’t. For us, writing is way too important for us to ruin it.”
Allen’s 29-year-old son, Quinn, said his dad’s latest work is not for the faint at heart.
“When you read the book, there is a gray area of what is good and what is bad. My father writes in a very gray style. It’s not the typical black and white, good guy bad guy,” Quinn said. “He understands that real people are flawed and I feel like that’s what really comes to life.”
I Disappeared Them is available on Amazon, BookShop and at Barnes & Noble.
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