Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is no match for a local Cedar Gap man who has recently published his first book in a planned trilogy.
Dallas Nassey, 32, of Cedar Gap, self-published his book “Fall Prey: The Hunt” and it became available for purchase at Amazon.com on Aug. 11. He has plans to release “The Attack,” the second part of his trilogy in March 2022.
Nassey describes his book as a science fiction horror novel featuring a vampire adventure. One of the book’s characters was based off of his late brother Dillon, who died of the same disease he has in Dec. 2017 at the age of 25.
“If he had not died, I would not have written a book in the first place,” Nassey said. “I promised him I would write a book and put it in dedication to him and base a character off of him in his memory.”
Nassey said all of his character back stories are based on himself and his family. Massey, who has a genetic disorder known for progressive muscle degeneration and weakness, typed the book at 20 words per minute on his computer.
He said he came up with the initial idea when he was attending Mansfield High School during the time the Twilight books came out.
“I decided maybe I can do it better myself and it developed over 10 years,” said Massey, who is a Class of 2008 graduate.
Massey’s book costs just $14.99 on Amazon. Though his genetic disease may have slowed him down, it has not stopped his pursuit of a cure through gene therapy. When he’s not writing, he is teaching at Missouri State University as an adjunct professor online.
He earned a bachelors in Biology and Masters in cellular and molecular biology.
His mom, Cindy Rambo (Clark), taught at Mansfield for 19 years and graduated Mountain Grove in 1982.
Dallas has another brother, Beau Massey, who went to Mansfield schools. He did not have Duchenne MD.
“Every boy had a 50% chance of having it,” Cindy said.
Prior to moving to Cedar Gap, the family lived in Seymour.
