The Riverside Press-Enterprise
Small minds in a small town
De’shawn Charles Winslow returns to fictional West Mills and its social and personal dysfunction
“Decent People,” the second novel from De’shawn Charles Winslow, is set in 1976 and features the murder of three siblings in the segregated South. While the novel features few characters who meet the title’s standards, Jo Wright, from whose perspective we see the early action, is one. But she’s an outsider, having only recently returned to her childhood hometown of West Mills, North Carolina.
The rest of the characters — especially Eunice Loving, Ted Temple and his estranged daughter Savannah, who all get their own chapters — embody some of the worst of small-town life; even the things they do with good intentions are misguided. While the crime looms over all the characters, the catalyst for much of the lying and secrecy is Eunice’s disastrous attempt to have one of the victims — the much-feared, much-loathed doctor Marian Harmon — “cure” her teen son, La’roy, of his homosexuality.
“I think small towns can be good for people who conform, but it’s not great for queer people or any type of person who stands out,” says Winslow, whose first novel, “In West Mills,” explored the same town over many decades and featured some of the same characters as “Decent People.” “Even in the ’90s, I still heard very homophobic comments on a regular basis from adults and my peers and no one batted an eye. It was understood that being gay was bad.”
This interview was edited for length and clarity. (Full disclosure: During the course of the interview, we realized that Winslow had once taken a course I’d taught, something neither of us had been aware of until we spoke.)
QAt what point did you decide you wanted more of West Mills and the characters you’d created?
A“In West Mills” was already out when I came up with this idea. I had a couple of short stories I had written and wanted to incorporate them into another book but I was short on characters — those stories weren’t going to be enough for a novel — so I thought maybe I could use Eunice, Breezy and La’roy because a lot of readers really enjoyed being introduced to him and his queerness in “In West Mills,” which was just slightly suggested there. So I decided to bring back that family, and that meant keeping it in West Mills.
QHow similar or different is West Mills from Elizabeth City, the reallife town where you grew up?
AWest Mills is based on a town called South Mills and is very similar in terms of the character of the town. Elizabeth City has a little bit more going on — it’s where the hospital is and the university and the community college and a Coast Guard base, a little bit of the larger world. Elizabeth City is “the town” to the people of South Mills.
set it in 1976?
I had to time it so La’roy was 14. If I hadn’t used La’roy, Eunice and Breezy from “In West Mills” and had created new characters, I probably would have set it in the mid-’80s. I just like the ’80s and I was more familiar with the music and TV shows even though I was only born in 1979.
QThe chapters tell stories from the perspective of Jo, Eunice, Savannah and Ted. Did you consider giving La’roy his own chapters, since what happens to him is so central to the story?
AThe editor who acquired the book pitched that idea after reading an early draft, but I never wanted La’roy to have a POV in the book. At some point, I will do a book from the queer teen or queer young adult point of view but this is not it. I wanted this to be about how the adults deal with a queer child.
QSo many of these characters are liars and hypocrites, who treat even loved ones dishonestly or badly.
AI enjoy flawed characters. I wanted almost everyone to be complicit. Even La’roy is willing to blackmail his mom. Jo is the only one who isn’t. I hope people see that while Eunice and Savannah and even Ted did bad things, they’re all sort of victims of the patriarchy — Ted wants to get out of the shadow of his father and create a name for himself.
We meet Jo first, but to me, she’s not the protagonist. I think of all of them as protagonists.
QWas it challenging to balance the outsize drama of this story — a prominent Black doctor is murdered and everyone’s a suspect while families are also reeling from that doctor’s misbehaviors — with the issues surrounding race, class, sexuality and the perniciousness of small-town gossip?
AThat took some careful revising. Earlier drafts were very plotheavy and I went back and slowed things down, becoming more introspective, and toned down a lot of the plot. I weeded out some of the noir elements with Jo going around investigating. I had to flesh out the social issues, which was not really in the first couple of drafts.
QDo you think of this as a whodunit or do you want readers to focus more on the characters?
AIt was not initially planned to be a mystery at all. I did want the readers to have a little bit of fun with the whodunit but I didn’t want it to be the takeaway — the social issues are more important to me.
QDo you think you’ll be like William Faulkner or Stephen King now, continually returning to this fictional place you’ve created?
AI’ll take a break from West Mills but after another two books, I can see myself returning.