Book Review: The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap

A women's Brokeback Mountain. The year was filled with memorable historical events: the Dreyfus Affair divided France; Booker T. Washington gave his Atlanta address; the United States expanded the effects of the Monroe Doctrine in South America; and Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted for gross indecency under Britain's recently passed law that made sex between males a criminal offense. When news of Wilde's conviction went out over telegraphs worldwide, it threw a small Nevada town into chaos. This is the story of what happened when the lives of its citizens were impacted the Wilde news. It is a chronicle of hatred and prejudice with all its unintended and devastating consequences, and how love and friendship bring strength and healing.




 Paulette Mahurin

From the time I was ten year old, I've loved to write. While in college I wrote two award winning short stories. This encouraged me to continue to write, and write I did but never completed any of my novels due to other responsibilities: education, jobs, family, etc. After attending and receiving a Master's Degree in the Nurse Practitioner Program at UCLA, I went to work in the second busiest emergency room in Los Angeles county. I saw and learned about things that haunted me, until bit by a tick and diagnosed with Lyme Disease (which went to my heart valves, brain, and muscular skeletal system) knocked me down and afforded me time to write and release the memories onto pages before me. I wrote, and wrote, and released what was stored inside, which finally gave way to a story that was to change my life, The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap. When I began to feel better, I joined a writing class, in Ojai, CA, where I live. The teacher, Deb Norton (screenwrite/playwrite of The Whole Banana) had us do an exercise involving a photo. We were to write a 10 minute mystery. The photo I picked was of two women huddled close together in clothing that looked circa turn of the twentieth century. I made them a Lesbian couple trying to avoid being found out. In my research, I came across Oscar Wilde's imprisonment. Britain had recently changed it's laws to make homosexual activity, a man having sex with another man, a criminal offense resulting in a two year hard labor prison sentence. The combination of the photo from that writing class and Oscar Wilde's imprisonment were the seeds that started the story, six years in the making. For those six years, I studied Wilde, the history of Lesbians, western settlement in the United States, and I opened to what it must have been like to live in fear of being persecuted because of the nature of one's existence, that can no more be changed than the color of grass. As I wrote, I saw myself in the characters who I dialogued with, related with as if we were friends today, and in doing this I learned that external factors may change (the environment, technology, family relating, etc.) but the nature of the human condition and how we manifest remains the same. There will always be stories to tell, to write, to read, to appreciate, because we invest in literature from our humanness, our emotional composition, and we relate to the imagery created with narrative and dialogue that suit our preferences. We are drawn in, over and over and over again, to similar story lines, themes, sequels, because of this human experience--that in sitting down before a book or ebook, we are transcended out of our ordinary lives to magical places that written words create, no matter how similar or repetitive the story, because,after all, we are all living, breathing, stories.

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In honor of the 15 years spent with her beloved companion Tazzie (a Rottweiler), as well as her desire to support no-kill animal shelters, proceeds from the sales of "The Persecution of Mildred Dunlap" benefit the Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center.
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 MY REVIEW!!!!  Something I commonly do when writing a review is to see what other people write as reviews. I do this to see others points of view on the same thing I just read. A learning point for me to see how different people feel about the same item. I was sadden to see a review for this book be lowered in grade because the person reviewing this book doesn't support gay/lesbian relationships. That exact thing is one of the issues that Paulette so bravely and powerfully writes about in this story.

It worries me that in 1800 they had the same look at others as we do now in 2012. That is 212 years to grow and understand and come to terms and accept change that we have not done. We continue to consider things taboo that we do not understand or we ourselves do not like. And it breaks my heart that in 212 years we haven't changed.

Paulette has written an amazing and over the top historical fiction that if not informed that this was a fictional piece I would almost bet that it truly happen. She has so many details of the time era and so much passion and depth in her characters and story plot that you couldn't help but get lost in the story.

 You may not support every issue in this book and you may look at the issues differently but I strongly suggest everyone to read this story and maybe just maybe give it a shot to be great even if you don't agree with everything in it. And a few of you it may even open your eyes. I know I am thrilled to have such a powerful work of art sit on my bookcase.

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