When I started writing The Outing, my first book, my head was inside a different story. I remember sitting down to write and looking out the French doors (they really were doors in France). Opening my laptop I decided to check the news before getting underway. Classic procrastination. But this time it led to the start of an obsession.
A headline caught my eye. The story was about a thirty-year-old suicide verdict in the NSW (Australia) Coroner’s Court being overturned. It was now murder. A gay hate crime. And as I sat thinking about this poor man and his family, I almost wasn’t surprised to feel tears rolling down my face. It brought up all the fears I’d had for my own son.
It also stirred an urge to know more. I tried to talk myself out of it. I needed to get on with my current project.
But the feeling wouldn’t leave, and I began reading the original articles, then looking at other news about other gay men who’d been attacked and killed. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a ‘gay-panic’ get-out-of-jail-free card. It was like they were all my son, and I couldn’t lose the horrible guilt, the sense of powerlessness, the overwhelming sadness, and the anger.
Robert became the focal point of this feeling and the main character in The Outing, and I couldn’t not tell his story.
The Outing
As the mother of a gay son the story of Alan Turing, the first gay man on a British banknote was one of the many to motivate me to write The Outing. The news articles i read about this man brought tears to my eyes. Alan was an outstanding computer scientist and a war hero but that didn’t spare him from what some have called a “witch hunt” of gay and bisexual men in the U.K., which led to the imprisonment of thousands of gay men and those suspected of being gay throughout the 1950s.
In January 1952, Turing was prosecuted for indecency over his relationship with another man in Manchester. Despite being referred to as a “national asset” during this trial by character witness Hugh Alexander, the head of cryptanalysis at the Government Communications Headquarters, Turing was persecuted.
The Man with the Butterfly Mind
What happens when the only living soul who knows you are missing is your dog.
JD has lost his name, his memories, and the everyday skills we all take for granted. But it’s sort-of OK, because he can’t remember what his life should be like.
Bimba has lost her owner. It’s all her fault, and she’s determined to find him, give him love-you-licks, and make-it-better.
When Meko finds an adorable furry bundle of dog is the reason she can’t open the door at work, she doesn’t hesitate to help.
When DrGreg finds a captivating Japanese woman with an unresponsive dog are his next patients, he doesn’t hesitate to help.
When MrsB momentarily loses her self-doubt and her phantom allergies, she finds a tentative willingness to help.
As the strangers’ lives and destinies converge around Bimba, none of them expect what happens next.
An inspiring story of loss and grieving, redemption and overcoming adversity, where what we get isn’t what we thought we wanted, and often happiness is disguised, waiting for us to catch on or catch up. A story with heart and humour, as uplifting as it is captivating.
I met Bimba and her best friend Lola, both rescue dogs, in Agua Amarga, a beautiful isolated village in the stunning Cabo de Gata National Park in Southern Spain. We were looking after them while their owner was away visiting family overseas.
She was cute and quiet and her owner said she’d been mistreated. So how did she become one of the main characters in The Man with the Butterfly Mind?
Driving home from a stock up visit to the supermarket and not coming across a single other vehicle I wondered what would happen to Bimba and Lola, if for some reason, I didn’t make it back.
It’s not a nice thought is it?
The idea persisted (always a good indication that there’s something that wants to be explored). And later wandering over the cliff tops between Burgau and Praia de Luz in the Algarve, Portugal the idea for this story started to take shape.
At around that time I spoke with a friend who’d had a very lengthy surgery and her story of forgetting things and re-learning afterwards, reminded me of another close friend. Her son had suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident and been in a lengthy induced coma.
People, me included, thought you had surgery or were in a coma and when you ‘woke up’ everything ‘went back to normal’. It’s not that simple. Sometimes you don’t get everything back, and sometimes you don’t even get close to ‘normal’ back.