TOMI Magazine November 2012

INDIE-PENDENT A NEW COURSE OF ACTION D EBORAH HENRY

Research can put a whole new perspective on an idea. The excitement of starting a new pro- ject can supersede, well, just about anything going on your life. It takes total control over your mind. You can’t wait to start. You think of the benefits earned when you finish. It is all so new, fresh and wonderful that you find your- self diving right in. And then you hit your head against a rock. Hard. You realize you didn’t expect the unexpected. It was just a simple idea. Who knew such ‘things’ could come about? “I never realized in my lifetime that marrying somebody out of your faith would create so much tension. There is still an un- dercurrent of social injustice and intolerance for other faiths, other marriages, you know? So, that’s where I started” - says Deborah Henry, author of ‘The Whipping Club’. A story about a Catholic girl who gave up her half- Jewish child for adoption and the trials and suffering both endured. “My father was Jewish and my mother’s Irish Catholic. Being a child of an interfaith marriage made me feel isolat- ed a lot. I thought. What would it look like in Dublin? How I write it, I start reading non- fiction to really get a feel for the truth. What I unraveled outraged me. My grandmother who was close to me was from North of Ireland. She painted this picture of overgrown trees and pony’s she rode. I was shocked to find out that during the 60s and way before there was this underbelly going on. This hidden atrocity of people. Of women and children particularly who, if you were out of wedlock, were really whisked away. There was so much unchecked power by the church. And the state would work with the church’s. The nuns, the priests and the brothers would hide these women away. And the people I interviewed… the shame and the secrets. The guilt that they lived with. Their children really ripped out of their arms. It makes my book look like a fair- ytale.” The challenge of any task is to stay on course. To not fray from the goal no matter how hard you are distracted. But there are just some things that you can’t push to the side. Even if it has been said before some sto- ry’s are worth a second mention. “It was very

Deborah Henry Author, The Whipping Club WWW.DEBORAHHENRYAUTHOR.COM

challenging to take all of this information and turn it into a novel. I feel like it is not enough storytelling. So, I thought, writing a novel I could try to make into a film, would reach a different audience.” A new course of action brings an un- comfortable, but familiar ‘writing’ ground. For the author this means having to visually relive as well as adapt the story to play out on the silver screen. “The highest calling is for- giveness” - shares Deborah. “My biggest thing is forgiveness. Not just indictment of the church. I honestly think it was a huge dark period. We all have dark sides even as human beings. I think if we acknowledge the monster that is the dark side and sort of look it in the eye, that to me is the only way to begin the journey towards moving on.” An amazingly, true-to-life book trailer starring Eric Roberts as Brother Ryder and Luc Austin as Adrian Ellis, gives a realistic view into this chilling story. “I’m trying to under- stand through the writing that sometimes peo- ple ask me when they’ve read my book and say ‘This is what happens when good people remain silent’.” - Tonisha L. Johnson

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