Interview With ‘Dumplin’ Author Julie Murphy
Willowdean Dickson (aka Dumplin’) lives in the tiny, fictional town of Clover City, Texas. Her dad’s out of the picture, her beloved, Dolly Parton-loving aunt has passed away, and she can barely relate to her ex-pageant queen mom who runs the town’s most important cultural institution: The Miss Teen Bluebonnet Pageant. The last thing that self-proclaimed fat girl Will wants to do is enter that pageant. But then her world is turned upside down and before she knows it she’s practicing her walk, searching for a talent (magic tricks, anyone?), and squeezing into a red sequined dress.
Julie Murphy’s first book, Side Effects May Vary, was about Alice, a teenage girl who is a little more prickly and brooding than Will. With Dumplin’, she gives us a protagonist who adores Dolly Parton and trashy reality TV shows. Will is fiercely loyal to her BFF Ellen, until they start to drift apart. She’s confident about her body, saying things like, “I don’t like to think of my hips as a nuisance, but more of an asset. I mean, if this were, like, 1642, my wide birthing hips would be worth many cows or something.” But when Will realizes that her movie star hot co-worker Bo likes her as much as (and maybe even more than) she likes him, her confidence starts to wane.
It’s a funny, human, uplifting book about accepting yourself — no matter what you look like or who you love. The book starts off with the Dolly Parton quote, “Find out who you are and do it on purpose,” and it’s a mantra everyone should adopt, especially in high school.
Smart Girls spoke to Murphy about the inspiration for Willowdean, what she hopes people get out of the book, and the fact that “self-love is a roller coaster.”
Oh, and watch out for the movie version of Dumplin’, since the book was optioned by Disney this summer.
Smart Girls: When did Willowdean first pop into your head? What inspired you to tell her story?
Julie Murphy: The first scene that I put on paper was this chubby girl in a red and white uniform making out with a boy in the back of a fast-food restaurant. The next thing I wrote was this moment where’s she’s catcalled by an old man and she’s explaining this to her mother later on in the evening and her mom’s like, “That’s kind of sweet.” And she’s like, “No, it’s not.” That was the moment where I really had a better understanding of the character. The last piece of the puzzle for me was Dolly Parton. Once I knew this girl was obsessed with Dolly Parton, I felt like I knew her, and she was totally alive in my head.
SG: Will is completely different than Alice from Side Effects May Vary. Was Will a reaction to Alice at all, since Alice was much more difficult and dark than Will?
They’re both stubborn and headstrong and they’re both fierce. They both love fiercely and they react fiercely so they both react before they think. After spending a year and a half in Alice’s head, though, I was ready to spend time with someone who was a little more lighthearted and was into Dolly Parton.
SG: Will is surprised throughout the book when people tell her how confident she is, because she doesn’t feel confident at all. That felt very real to me. Was that something you’ve experienced as well?
Growing up people told me, “You’re so confident — I can’t believe how confident you are.” It was so weird not to feel that. I didn’t have an understanding of your inner self versus your external self and how those can be in conflict with each other. Keeping the reader in mind was really important to me [with this book]. For me, the reader was so much my sixteen-year old self, so it was easy to imagine what the reader was going through and what they would relate to because I knew it so well.
SG: I loved the relationship between Will and her best friend Ellen. It really feels like the heart of the book in some ways. What do you hope readers get out of their friendship, which goes through a pretty rocky transformation?
In your teen years friendship is really hard. Most people are spending every day with these people and all the sudden you graduate or you don’t go to the same school and they’re most likely out of your everyday life. As teenagers it’s so easy to invest so much of your identity into who your friends are. It can still happen in your twenties.
SG: That’s true.
Just before I started writing the book, my best friend and I went out to sushi one night and she was like, “I have to tell you something, Julie. My husband and I are going to start trying for a baby.” I just started crying in the middle of the sushi restaurant and said, “But what about me?!” I wasn’t ready for my best friend to make this step that I wasn’t ready to take. I couldn’t picture a world where I would exist in her new future. I think the big takeaway from the book is that the friendships that are going to last are going to last. You can do your best to maintain a friendship, but sometimes it’s just not meant to be.
SG: A big part of Will and Ellen’s bond is Dolly Parton. They both love her. Were you a huge Dolly fan before writing the book? She’s the ultimate role model for Will.
I was in love with her but not with her music initially. I’m from Connecticut and when I was six or seven we moved to Texas. It was a really big move. The only idea of the South that I had was from Steel Magnolias and Dolly Parton as the hairdresser saying, “Shelby drink your juice!” So that was my idea of the South. It was always hugely important to me so as I grew older I started appreciating her music more, and as I was writing this book it turned into this monster obsession.
SG: She’s kind of the mascot of the book. Do you know if she’s read it?
I went to see her in concert and I know that my film agent has sent her the book since Disney has the movie rights, which is crazy and something I never thought I’d say out loud. Eventually she’ll have to find out if they move forward because you can’t really make the movie without her music.
SG: Will starts off despising the Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant, but later on she doesn’t have such a chip on her shoulder about it. She doesn’t love it, but she also doesn’t make fun of it as much. What’s your opinion of these types of pageants?
It’s hard because I know plenty of people that did pageants. It’s really easy to write it off as superficial and a waste of time. It definitely is problematic though; these women going on a stage to be judged for what their bodies look like before they can even get to the interview. There’s something definitely wrong there. But it’s something that growing up I was too quick to judge and I was a little too bitter about it. I don’t feel comfortable placing a judgment on it but I do believe there’s something problematic with it. It’s not something that’s accessible to all women and it’s hard for me to support that. I want to support a woman’s right to do it, but I still feel a little weird about it.
SG: Are you working on anything new? Do you think you would revisit Willowdean with a sequel?
I’m working on another book right now that’s tentatively called Ramona Drowning and it’s about a girl who is a lesbian but who thinks she might be falling for her male best friend, and she’s very confused by that. I would be lying if I said that I wouldn’t go back to Clover City. I don’t know that I would go back to Willowdean because I think I brought her to a point where her story ends in a good place and I don’t want to see any more conflict in her life. There are other girls in the story who I think I could go back and write about.
SG: What do you hope readers take away from Dumplin’?
Growing up I was always the biggest person in the classroom. I’ve always been tall and I’ve always been a fat person. I was always very aware of space and how much space I took up. We’re all too ready to tell women in our society how much space they can take up and that men should take up more space. At the end of the day I just want women to be comfortable with their bodies and know that they’re not born and allotted a certain amount of square footage. Your body is your body and you’ve only got one of them. The other thing is that I made this conscious decision to really aggressively love my body and not crash diet and think I was failing if I had a negative thought about myself one day. I had to learn that every day you have to wake up and say, “I’m going to be kind to myself today and that means I’m going to be kind to my body and my mind, and sometimes those two might be in conflict with each other.” Self-love is a roller coaster.
Julie Murphy’s Dumplin’ is out September 15 from Balzer + Bray.
Images courtesy of HarperCollins
