WHY I WROTE THE WHIPPING CLUB
Why I wrote THE WHIPPING CLUB, to a great extent, remains mysterious to me, similar to why we fall in love with certain people and all the other great mysteries of life.
What I do know is that I am captivated that one misstep can change the course of one’s life. What I do know is that I am fascinated with the notion of freedom and am outraged by social, political and religious intolerance, outraged by cruelty to the innocent, outraged by man’s inhumanity to man.
During the years spent reading and researching, one day the questions came: What is the one thing you cannot live with? What is the one thing that you cannot live without? What makes you cry?
“To be unable to protect my children” was the answer.
Lots of mystery and synchronicity and letting go and living with the discomfort of writing without a clue where any of this writing would lead, fumbling along after my characters who were raised and lived in foreign countries, mostly Ireland though some were refugees from Lithuania and one character hailed from Poland.
Why bother with all this writing emerged toward the end of the journey.
I wrote THE WHIPPING CLUB because what I found hidden I needed to uncover.
–
Deborah Henry