I recently had a chance to sit down with Rev. Dwain Lee — a former architect, current minister at Springdale Presbyterian Church, and now mystery author. We talked Louisville architecture, Civil War re-enactments, and his debut novel, “Plausible Deception.”
Lee’s upbringing and early career
Dwain Lee took a circuitous route to wind up in LOU.
- He was born in rural Pennsylvania, and went to undergrad at Penn State.
- After a brief career in real estate, he opened his own architecture firm in Columbus, OH (shout out to CBUStoday).
- The firm fell victim to the 2008 financial crisis, and Lee made a transition into the ministry, met his now-husband George Yu (more on him later), and landed his current job at Springdale Presbyterian Church.
How Lee came to Louisville
Fun fact: Lee spent almost a decade with a traveling Civil War re-enactment artillery unit. For a long time, his only knowledge of Louisville was driving through on the way to or from battles.
He always remembered the Wright Tower for how unappealing it looked. Now, it’s his favorite building in town — but not for the reasons you might think.
Now, he’s called the city home for almost a decade. Much of the book was written at the very table in the back room of Bean where we had coffee.
From minister to mystery
Recently, he published his debut mystery novel, which follows fictionalized versions of himself and his husband as they are wrapped up in a scandalous case involving a stolen Stradivarius violin. The story isn’t as far-fetched as it might seem — Lee’s husband George Yu is an internationally-recognized luthier, aka a violin-maker.
The idea to write a book came to Lee after he and Yu had what he describes as a “harrowing” incident in LAX wherein one of Yu’s violins was nearly confiscated by a bomb squad.
“Afterwards, I said ‘this doesn’t even feel real, it feels like something you read about in a book.’ And that just got the wheels turning,” said Lee.
In the book, main character Dan Randolph and his husband Greg Zhu travel to a conference in Los Angeles, where they are swept up in the theft of the priceless instrument. This part of the story is, of course, entirely fictional. But the book starts and ends right here in Louisville, grounded largely in reality.
What’s in it for LOU
Local readers will feel right at home as Dan starts his day with a walk down Bardstown Road, greeted by Adimu Kimani, an immigrant from Kenya famous for her fresh-baked cookies — sound familiar? He meets a friend in Cherokee Park before heading towards his home in Schnitzelburg.
Lee also offers a new perspective on the history of the landmarks we might take for granted. In the opening chapter, Dan and his friend Rich — both married gay men — muse on the irony of meeting for a morning stroll at Hogan’s Fountain, a place that had been a meeting spot for members of the LGBTQ+ community for more than 100 years.
I asked Lee what he hoped local readers would take away from his novel.
“I just hope someone enjoys the mystery,” Lee said. He said his goal was to write the kind of book someone might pick up at the airport, then leave in the seat pocket for someone else.
But he also underscored how he wanted the character, a gay pastor in an interracial marriage, to feel “familiar. Not scary, not out of the ordinary.”
The characters’ ages are important to him as well. Both Lee and Yu are in their 60s, and he wants to show younger LGBTQ people that “life doesn’t end at 30, or 40.”
What’s next
“Plausible Deception” is Lee’s first book, but he already has a sequel in the works. He said he is enjoying this new venture — his only previous writing experience was writing sermons, or as he put it, “writing for the relentless return of Sunday.”
As Lee said, the first book focuses on his husband’s world of professional violinmaking. The sequel, titled “Sinner’s Prayer,” will focus more on his own — it follows Dan Randolph after decades-old human remains are discovered under his church.
I had a chance to read the first ~15 pages of the current draft — you won’t want to miss it.
Lee has hosted several author events + signings since the book’s release, and he hopes to do more. You can find “Plausible Deception” at Carmichael’s, From the Ground Up Books in La Grange, or online via Amazon.
