Author Interview: 'Gardens of Hope' Michael Holloway Perronne
Michael Holloway Perronne is the
author of eight books including: "A Time Before
Me," "Falling Into Me", "A Time Before Us, Men Can Do
Romance" "Gardens of Hope," and"Embrace the
Rain." His debut novel, "A Time Before Me" won the
BronzeAward, Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Award in the Gay/Lesbian fiction category.
Michael was born and raised in Mississippi.
He received a BA in Film from the University of Southern
Mississippi and a MFA in Drama and Communications
from the University of New
Orleans.
He
currently resides in Southern California and is working
on his next novel, "The Other Side of Happy."
His recent release is Gardens
of Hope.
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About the Book:
On the surface, Jack appears to have all a
man in World War II era 1941 could want with his solid middle-class background,
upcoming college graduation, and the perfect, devoted fiancee. But one
Despite the constant danger of being
arrested by vice cops, Jack continues to visit the park every chance he has to
feel a connection, no matter how fleeting, with another man. One night he meets
a handsome and charismatic Japanese-American, Hiro, who appears to want more
than a quick encounter, and Jack surprises himself by starting to truly fall in
love for the first time.
However, after the bombing of Pearl
Harbor, President Roosevelt issues Executive Order 9066 and orders the
mandatory relocation of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans, who have never been
charged with a crime, to far flung internment camps sites. Jack and Hiro
suddenly find themselves torn apart before their secret, fledgling romance can
blossom. Desperate to find and reconnect with Hiro, Jack accepts a high school
teaching position at an internment camp in the California desert, Manzanar.
There, surrounded by armed guard towers and a prison-like environment, Jack
begins to fully realize the injustices being faced by Japanese-Americans during
one of the most controversial times of United States history and shifts his
world view- forever.
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Q: Welcome to The Writer's
Life! Now that your book has been
published, we’d love to find out more about the process. Can we begin by having you take us at the
beginning? Where did you come up with
the idea to write your book?
There’s been a lot of talk in the
media lately about Executive Orders given by the Trump administration, such as
the one banning temporarily banning citizens and refugees from majority Muslim
countries. Until about a decade ago, I
barely had any awareness of the details of President Roosevelt’s Executive
Order 9066 which required the forced registry and relocation during World War
II of over 100,000 Japanese-Americans due only to their ancestry. My interest
in learning more about Japanese-American internment began years ago when one of
my co-workers revealed to me that she had been sent to the camp based in Arkansas
as a girl. As young as she was during that time, she still had vivid
memories of what it felt like to grow up behind barbed wire and treated at such
a young age as a prisoner. I was moved by her story and honored that she
shared it with me. Most of all, I was shocked at how little I, and it appeared
many others, had about this part of US
history.
The more I learned on the
subject, the more I wanted to use Japanese-American internment as a backdrop
for a novel focused on the forbidden love story between two men from different
worlds. I never could have dreamed when
I first started working on Gardens of
Hope how similar the rhetoric towards immigrants by our current president’s
administration would be to what was used to ultimately incarcerate tens of
thousands of Americans that had committed no crime.
Q: How hard was it to write a
book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make
the journey easier for other writers?
Gardens of Hope was my first historical
novel, and I was quite nervous at first writing it. I so wanted to do the topic justice and
capture as best as possible the struggles of Japanese-Americans during this
period. What worked best for me in my
research turned out to be a combination of multiple visits to the Manazanar internment
camp site in California, numerous
pieces of fiction and non-fiction on the subject, including Jeanne Wakatsuki
Houston’s classic, Farewell to Manzanar, and
some personal interviews. The park
rangers at the Manazanar site also proved to be quite helpful and willing to
answer any questions about the site. To
other authors writing a historical novel, I would suggest searching for as many
different sources of information on the topic as possible, including a variety
of first person accounts to get as well-rounded a viewpoint on the topic as
possible.
Q: Who is your publisher and how
did you find them or did you self-publish?
Chances Press published Gardens of
Hope. It’s an indie press working
with a small roster of authors that has worked with all of my titles.
Q: Is there anything that
surprised you about getting your first book published?
My debut novel, A Time Before Me, a gay coming-of-age
novel set in New Orleans, was
released back in 2004. Back then the
amount of gay fiction, especially gay romance, was just starting to explode in
the publishing market. One of my biggest
joys after the novel came out was the amount of emails I got from readers,
especially those in the South were the book was set, on how the message of the
book spoke to them and mirrored some of their own personal experiences.
Q: What other books (if any) are
you working on and when will they be published?
Currently, I’m working on a new novel titled The Other Side of Happy that focuses on a divorced couple coping
with finding out that their child is transgender.
Q: What’s one fact about your
book that would surprise people?
I think
examples of the hate rhetoric towards Japanese-Americans in the book will sound
eerily familiar to what we hear being used now against immigrant groups. It feels as if we’ve forgotten our history
and what happens when we fail to celebrate our country’s biggest asset, our
diversity.
Q: Finally, what message (if any)
are you trying to get across with your book?
I hope Gardens of Hope
inspires readers to find more about both Japanese-American internment and the
early gay rights history. Sometimes to
understand our present and the possible future we need to pay attention to our
past.
Q: Thank you again for this
interview! Do you have any final words?
I hope that those who may be feeling helpless
with the current state of our government and society become inspired to find
their voice to continually speak out against injustices not just against
themselves but all of their fellow Americans.
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