Review: The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap is a story which revolved
around five important characters who would loved to live the kind of life they craved without
being scrutinized and crucified, but they found themselves in a hateful society
where their kinds of ideal love life was rebuked and despised. The story
illustrated loyalty, true friendship, hate, prejudice comparison to race, the
jews and as well as gays. Moreso assimilating all the Oscar Wilde’s quotes
explored in this book, the story furtherore portrayed lives, the essence of
living, honest, love, survival, death, good reputation and all!
To start with, while reading this book I could not break
away from it. It’s a story with a lot of depth, good story backdrop and
originality. At some point, I thought I had tears in my eyes as I neared the
end of the book. Not that I’m too emotional, but this book is just way to
transcendent not to affect anyone greatly. Just because I have access to the
author I could not let her be. From time to time I contacted her to know what
next happened in the book chapter after chapter, but she is a good suspense
holder! She did well not telling me anything until I read through it all.
The story began in 1985 with the breaking news spreading around
the world of the conviction of the well known and most successful playwright,
novelist, and short story writer Oscar Wilde. Wilde was sentenced to two years
of hard labor under the Britain’s Criminal Law for sexual activity between
members of the same sex.
This incident caused people’s attitudes to change about
homosexuality from a mood of pity and tolerance to hatred and abuse. The news
was that Wilde was caught in the act with another mate, Lord Douglas, the son
of the Marquins of Queensberry, and Victorian London would not tolerate such immoral
decadence.
In Red River Pass in a small town of Nevada this kind of occurrence
had also happened. The Parker boys had been playing out by the lake when they
ran across Harold Simons hugging Bert Langlay. When the Parker boys ran home
and told their parents, they had exaggerated what they saw; said the men were
kissing, starting to undress. Within twenty four hours two families were thrown
into irreversible turmoil. The story spread like untamed fire in the town.
After days of the incident Harold Simons took a gun to his own head and blew
his brains out. A week later both families moved from Red River Pass.
Also in the town were two women Mildred Dunlap and Edra
Fitzgerald who loved themselves in ways couple love one another and they tried
to protect themselves from the hateful society with stories of Wilde and the
Harold and Bert.
Mildred was the brunt of ridicule and of jokes in the town
because she has a prematurely receding hairline with some facial hair above her
lips, muscles which showed through her dress sleeves like a man’s through his
shirt, and a height which towered over a lot of men of the town at close to six
feet. She was called a giant cow and the ugliest curse of the Red River Pass.
Josie’s jealousy ran deeper by the day for Mildred. She was
a character with forceful personality which no one could understand why she had
so much distaste for Mildred. She so hated her that she would go extra mile to destroy
her. Josie and the sister hood of talebearers in the town had nothing to do
with their lives than scout for lives to ruin. They were most vicious and the
most closed minded petty people in the town that would give up their lives to
see Mildred cleaned out.
Mildred being wealthy and controlling the purse strings of
the community looked past this hatred and continued to help the people with her
money, but was dying inside for all the hounding. Despite Mildred generosity she remained Josie’s
target for destruction and she knew it. With all the discrimination going about
homosexuality, Mildred feared for her life and that of her cousin.
While the town people and head talebearer Josie busied with
the news of Oscar Wilde, Mildred came up with the trick to get Charley Milpass attention
who at the time struggled to save the life of the love of his life Emma Milpass
suffering cancer. This Mildred’s plan was to avert any suspicion from forming
around her and Edra. She wanted Josie and group to unfold another rumor
different from what was really happening.
At
first Mildred's plan failed. Charley who suffered unthinkable loss, of the love
of his life, would not welcome any woman in his heart. However, with time Charley
came to realized Mildred was a good person inside and out and the physical
ugliness was just a cross for her to bear in her life. He became her true friend.
Then, tittle-tattle swelled that Charley who claimed could never loved another
woman but Emma was dating Mildred, impregnated her, and was set to marry her.
Mildred was glad for this new focus Josie and cliques now
occupied themselves with, nonetheless with intensity of the gossip which was
damaging to the human soul, on the inside, Mildred kept breaking down terribly
from the years of none stop persecutions.
With the sweet friendship Mildred found in Charley, Edra feared
she would lose Mildred to Charley. At nine-year-old Edra whose mother died at
childbirth was raped. In all the months of her recovery from the shock of the
rape, it was Mildred who nurtured Edra back to life again. On Edra’s twelfth
birthday, three years after the rape, things forever changed in her life and
between her and Mildred.
Edra felt unsaved with people and could not
bring herself to love a man. Only in Mildred did she found any form of love and
security. She confessed how she felt for Mildred on her birthday, their love life kicked
started.
Charley found out about Mildred and Edra’s love life,
knowing what grief it was to lose a loved one, he didn’t tell on them, rather
he became supportive of their relationship. With time Edra relaxed around Charley, when she was sure that
Charley only intended to be a true friend to Mildred and could never love
another like Emma his late wife. The three became true friends, and once again
Edra could trust again another person different from her family.
Helene Whitmore, one of the talebearers lost her only son
little Frankie while she planned with Josie and the rest to bring Mildred down.
Josie and husband Satchel were shooed out of the town to Carson City and
Mildred had her life and good health back.
At the end of this book I found that Mildred had been
hounded by her past because of her father's deeds and a man who looked like the
father whom people believed they must had been related; Mildred was persecuted
for this passed people’s mistakes without mercy and misguided vengeance.
This is all I’m going to give out from this book.
Summary: This is an absolute fascinating, great and touching novel.
The author of this book is a very nice person. In a little while our paths had
crossed, I’ve been touched by her true kindness. At some point when I couldn’t
get this book with the readable format on my smart phone because my lap top was
faulty, she gifted me the book on Amazon. Auntie P, thanks very kindly for the
chance given me to review this wonderful book.
I found Edra’s transformation somewhat annoying at first when I
didn’t know where the story was heading. I assumed the worse for Mildred. I
imagined she would be killed or something. I felt Edra should have looked
someplace else for another woman to love rather than put the well-meaning
protagonist Mildred Dunlap in trouble. As soon as I knew that there was no harm
to cause damage on Mildred’s life, I regained my peace. In Friendship,
relationship, Mildred is an ideal person to have as a partner. I felt a great
connection to her a great deal. She reminded me of myself; you do good to people and in turn you are
rewarded with evil.
The story world of this book was perfect. It slowly played
out organically. It was like everything was happening around me in the real
life. Overall, this story has other mesmerizing characters to hold you
spellbind to the book. It’s a well crafted story. I recommend you get your copy
of The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap if you haven’t.
Rating: Five
Stars
Sum It Up: Touching, Adult Female Friendship Book
