The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap in my opinion is a novel written in promoting
the freedom of being whoever you want to be - having what you ordinarily
deserve as a person - freedom from hatred, expectations and opinions of others
of what they expect of your life to be. The novel exclusively focuses on the
horrors of prejudice. Not everyone can pull such an idea off like the author of
this book has done.
In the house with me today is the author of The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap,
Paulette Mahurin. Auntie Paulette, permit me to call you that - welcome to I Am
Darmie Orem's blog as well as Authors' Curtilage with Darmie Orem. I am glad
and honoured to have you here before my audience and follower, and your future
readers.
Please let us meet you - your place of birth, things you like most about this
place of birth, your family background, hobbies and interests.
Please let me first say a wholehearted
thank you, to you my lovely host. It’s been really great getting to know you.
I was born in Chicago, Illinois and moved
to Los Angeles with my parents when I was two. I grew up in West Los Angeles
and went to UCLA all the way up through
my Master’s Degree in Nursing. I loved
growing up in this area for the weather and
spread out location, never a lack of
things to do; theatre, restaurants, social diversity, schools close, and the
wonderful ocean within driving distance. I loved to swim and spent many days
down at the beach body surfing and hanging with friends. I love to read and write,
but my greatest passion is rescuing dogs, and helping to bring dogs to their
forever homes.
When did writing begin for you? Is it a gift or something you just picked up?
I can never remember not writing. I
have images of times when I was ten, with my little notebook, jotting down
prose, poetry, and short stories. I don’t have to think about writing and don’t
suffer from writer’s block; it just comes through me, as natural as breathing.
It wasn’t until I penned The Persecution
of Mildred Dunlap that I had the time to write and that was due to an
unfortunate twist of fate. I had rescued a dog, Tazzie, who came to me with
ticks. One latched on and gave me Lyme disease. I was down for the count and
virtually useless. But, I could write and write I did. In some ways, it was a
great part of my healing. I’m happy when I write; it’s my place of freedom and
sanctuary.
Please, tell us a little about the novel The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap.
The story takes place after the
imprisonment of Oscar Wilde and the impact this has on a small Nevada ranching town,
in particular a lesbian couple. It's a chronicle of hatred and prejudice with all
its unintended and devastating consequences and how love and friendship heal.
While reading through this book The
Persecution of Mildred Dunlap, I feared the worse for the protagonist Mildred
Dunlap. At some point, I thought she would be caught and persecuted in a gory
way for her love life or suffer cancer like her mother Sadie Bell did.
However, as I kept reading and came to the end of the book, the persecution of
Mildred came to me bit by bit. I think I had tears in my eyes. The last time
I read a book that I couldn't get off my mind in a while, was a year ago until
this book.
This is an intriguing concept; I would say not many writers could pull it off.
Everything about the book was absolutely perfect. The story world was smooth
and sublime! It was like some events playing out in the real life. Well done
Auntie Paulette.
Thank you, I am deeply humbled by your
words.
How did the idea for the Persecution of Mildred Dunlap originate?
I do a lot of pro-bono work with women
with health issues. One of the people I dealt with through the years was in the
closet, tormented by assault and molestation, fearful of coming out, into the
sunshine to just be. When I took ill, I had a lot of time to chat with this
person, to listen, to be there. As I started to get better, I took a writing
class in town. The teacher came in one day with a stack of photos and told us
to pick one and write a ten-minute mystery. I picked a photo of two women
huddled together very closely, wearing turn of twentieth-century garb,
looking fearful, it screamed lesbian couple afraid of being found out. Whether
the photo itself generated the seed for the story or the seed was already
planted from the earlier work I had been doing, I’ll never really know. That
was the original idea. That seed blossomed when I started to do research into
that time period and found Britain had just changed its laws on homosexuality
to make it a criminal offence, with a prison sentence of two years of hard labour.
Oscar Wilde fell victim to this unfortunate change.
The news of his imprisonment would be
the impetus to cause Mildred Dunlap, the protagonist to become fearful of being
found out. It was perfect.
What were the efforts - research,
literary, psychological, and logical you put into bringing this book to
publication?
I spent six years researching same-sex
relationships in history. I consulted with
LGBT readers and educated people to
help me gain as much of a subjective perspective of what it must have been like. I
read books on the topics of lesbians in history, the impact of Wilde’s
imprisonment on society, etc. Once I really saw what shoved people in the
closet, or got a strong cellular sense of it, the writing began to flow.
When I read about lesbians in history,
for instance, I discovered that women could have relationships, friendships,
cuddle and be affectionate, if they were considered “women friendships”, they
could even live together and be considered spinsters but were two women to be
labelled lesbian then they were deemed, diagnosed insane, and forced into mental
institutions. Their treatment was rape, to help them enjoy sex with a man. When
I read these things, tortuous and conscionable, my emotions were in tune with
hearing Mildred and Edra’s voices. The
other characters in the story we're familiar with, including Josie, and I could hear
them easily, it was Mildred and Edra’s fear I needed to feel organic. I
doubt I fully achieved that but certainly, all the research changed me, opened
me, to feel greater compassion but what it must be like to not be, simply not
be oneself, which can no more be helped than seed from flowering, a dog from
wagging its tail, a bee from buzzing, all-natural, all authentic.
The successful playwright, and novelist Oscar Wilde in this book, I must say most
of his quotes were inspiring that I had to share them on my Facebook and
Twitter pages. Is he a real person or a fictional based character?
He’s very much the real deal. All the quotes
and every aspect of his mention in the story were accurate, to my
research.
The town of Red River Pass, is that a
real place or something you fabricated on your own?
That one is fictionalized.
What are the challenges you encountered
building a mean-spirited, vengeful, hateful character like Josie? There is not
enough excuse for anyone to be that extremely evil as she was to Mildred, to a
fellow human being regardless of colour and accomplishments.
Josie walks among us every day, in our own shadows, and in the hearts where
hatred lives and polarizes. When we see something in another and we say it is
bad or even it is good, that judgment is divisive. What tilts us to the good or
the bad is our conditioning, society's value systems, our belief systems, that of
our parents, taught ignorance, etc. When we can look at these things, another
human being with differences from our own, as simply different and not bad or
inferior, then we are tasting tolerance. I’ve worked in the medical profession
for more years than I can recount, in the second busiest emergency room in Los
Angeles County, with the highest census of child abuse, believe me, I saw it
all. I’ve faced unspeakable evil and had to deal with it. It wasn’t hard for me
to write to Josie at all. She’s the teacher that walks among us, to help us see
that part of oneself that says someone else that is different is bad, and bad
must be destroyed. When we can see different for what it is, including Josie,
and not judge it, to have compassion for it, then tolerance has found its
light.
Mildred Dunlap is a woman everyone should emulate in their everyday lives. As
the creator of this blameless character, how has her life affected you
positively?
She’s the charitable good soul we all
aspire to want to emulate in our finer moments. She has shown me, reminded me
once again, that to love another, to accept another, you have to let go, move
on, not harm or take action against them, and continue to do right despite the temptation to not want to. She wouldn’t let someone starve because they were
mean to her. This speaks to the heat of ethical compassion that may live in all
of us to varying degrees that comes out unexpectedly, a man jumps into a river
to save a child from drowning, a woman pulls someone out of a burning car, we
give money when we barely have enough because something moves us.
What is your opinion on homosexuality?
To each his own. Live your life, love who you want, and do what you want, as long as you
aren’t hurting anyone, I have no issues with it. I’m all for human rights and
tolerance, equality for all. For me really it’s a non-issue.
Some of your characters like Gus
believed the Bible is another storybook written hundred years ago after Jesus
died, and Mildred and Edra preferred hearing their sermons from the birds than
sitting in the church with a congregation of hypocrites who called themselves
Christians. What's your perspective on the Holy book the Bible and
Christianity?
There are some topics better left
alone. Religion and politics are two examples of things I don’t openly discuss.
What I will say is that in the heart of compassion there is no right or
wrong way, just different. I have no issue with anyone believing anything,
religion, or faith, is a very personal thing, just as preference is. Have your
beliefs but don’t use them to hurt, demean, or put down another. I am an
advocate of tolerance for all. Gus was one viewpoint, one character in the
story. Mildred and Edra are two others. Then there was Amos, the minister, who
lived with Jesus in his heart with a passion. I tried to be fair in giving
equal representation to the different
perspectives.
If you have to re-pick your characters, which character would you not pick and
why?
I honestly wouldn’t change any of them.
They all had their place, their part, and fit with the town, the clicks, the
groups, the scenes. I can’t think of one I would cut.
What's the moral message behind The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap that you
would like your readers to make use of in their lives?
That we as humans are all different,
and different is neither good nor bad. I’d hope that new light might shine on
tolerance for the differences we all possess, to see them as just parts of what
it is to be human in all of us.
What encouraging message do you have for
aspiring writers?
A writer writes and to feel a part of
the process that’s all that has to happen. Don’t judge it, leave that to the
editors, just sit and do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s for ten minutes or ten
hours, sit your butt in the chair and write, then you can say, I’m a writer because, in fact, you are.
What are the social networks people can find you on? - your blog - Facebook, etc.
AMAZON.COM
Is any new project cooking up?
I'm heavy into promoting this book
because all profits are going to animal rescue,
the first and only no-kill shelter in
Ventura County, CA, Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center. (see link above) Along
with this, I continue to write, do pro-bono work with women, and help with dog
rescue.
Anyone, or group you would like to give praise for supporting you along the way
to bring The Persecution of Mildred to life?
You here for starters, a humble and
heartfelt thank you for taking the time to read my book and review it. And, to
anyone who has read it, purchased it, reviewed it, had me to their sites, or
spread the word in any way, I thank you from every cell in my body, in the name
of tolerance and animal rescue.
All right Auntie Paulette, thanks very
kindly for granting this interview. I hope you will be here again soon.
I would love that!
