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Making Mary
There was something missing in Vivian’s life that not even her beloved sisters or husband could give her. The one person she truly trusted seemed to bring more heart-ache than relief. Overcome with frustration, Vivian struck out helplessly at those closest to her.
428 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2001
17 people want to read
About the author
Dedra Muhammad
3 books65 followersAuthor Dr. Dedra Muhammad is an independent education and writing consultant. She worked as a public school educator and college counselor for over two decades. Earlier in her career, she served as a counselor for students in grades K-8 in Indiana and Georgia. Her curriculum vitae includes producing programs to help diverse groups of seniors from rural, low-income, and urban areas raise millions of dollars in scholarships every year.
Dr. Muhammad has been immersed amidst the behaviors of more than 250,000 students during her career. She is steeped in knowledge of trends in education, system barriers, and struggles some teenagers endure when it comes to making the most out of high school.
She has worked as an administrator in a homeless facility; she has done extensive work in domestic violence awareness and prevention. The musicals and stage plays Dr. Muhammad produced have themes permeating cultural diversity, education, abuse prevention, predatory lending --and other issues plaguing families and societies. She has worked with artists and groups such as WHODINI and Chuck D. from Public Enemy #1 to bring awareness to challenging problems like gun violence, date rape, land grabs, and crimes against the elderly.
She is the mother of twins Shafi and Hanif and a widow after being married to Phillip Muhammad, her beloved husband, for 25 years. Dr. Muhammad is a graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Indiana University (IPFW), and Capella University. Dr. Muhammad is also the organizer of the Rising South Literacy School.
Dr. Muhammad has been referred to as an “Artistic Genius” and as “The Good Doctor.”
Her 5-star novel, “Hidden Princess: The Rebirth of Making Mary,” is the first in an underway trilogy.
P{ersonal Message from Dr. Muhammad:
Greetings, Everyone!
I was born Dedra Lori Bradley in Pontiac, Michigan. I loved...I mean I completely loved to read as a youngster. I can recall staring at the tall bookshelves in our library, imagining each book as a jeweled piece of fruit I could pluck at will. Nothing was off-limits.
Once, I was in K-Mart with my mom whenever I spotted a book called "How to be the Perfect Liar" or something like that. I thumbed through it filled with amazement since it was absolutely creative and hilarious. My mother refused to purchase the likes of it. Later, she went back without me to buy it. She stated she had promised herself that if any of her children ever took an interest in reading, she would support them.
As a member of my high school's track team, I would huddle in the back seats of buses reading Black romance magazines with my friends. Things were innocent in those days. I read everything from entire encyclopedia sets to the Falconhurst and Mandingo series...all the way to everything by Donald Goins, Charlotte Bronte, John Grisham, Richard Wright,
Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison....oh! The genres were endless! However, my idea to author a was because I merely wanted to get a hidden story told. The only way to do that would be if I wrote that story. Hidden Princess is a fun and spectacular literary project.
Dr. Muhammad has been immersed amidst the behaviors of more than 250,000 students during her career. She is steeped in knowledge of trends in education, system barriers, and struggles some teenagers endure when it comes to making the most out of high school.
She has worked as an administrator in a homeless facility; she has done extensive work in domestic violence awareness and prevention. The musicals and stage plays Dr. Muhammad produced have themes permeating cultural diversity, education, abuse prevention, predatory lending --and other issues plaguing families and societies. She has worked with artists and groups such as WHODINI and Chuck D. from Public Enemy #1 to bring awareness to challenging problems like gun violence, date rape, land grabs, and crimes against the elderly.
She is the mother of twins Shafi and Hanif and a widow after being married to Phillip Muhammad, her beloved husband, for 25 years. Dr. Muhammad is a graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Indiana University (IPFW), and Capella University. Dr. Muhammad is also the organizer of the Rising South Literacy School.
Dr. Muhammad has been referred to as an “Artistic Genius” and as “The Good Doctor.”
Her 5-star novel, “Hidden Princess: The Rebirth of Making Mary,” is the first in an underway trilogy.
P{ersonal Message from Dr. Muhammad:
Greetings, Everyone!
I was born Dedra Lori Bradley in Pontiac, Michigan. I loved...I mean I completely loved to read as a youngster. I can recall staring at the tall bookshelves in our library, imagining each book as a jeweled piece of fruit I could pluck at will. Nothing was off-limits.
Once, I was in K-Mart with my mom whenever I spotted a book called "How to be the Perfect Liar" or something like that. I thumbed through it filled with amazement since it was absolutely creative and hilarious. My mother refused to purchase the likes of it. Later, she went back without me to buy it. She stated she had promised herself that if any of her children ever took an interest in reading, she would support them.
As a member of my high school's track team, I would huddle in the back seats of buses reading Black romance magazines with my friends. Things were innocent in those days. I read everything from entire encyclopedia sets to the Falconhurst and Mandingo series...all the way to everything by Donald Goins, Charlotte Bronte, John Grisham, Richard Wright,
Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison....oh! The genres were endless! However, my idea to author a was because I merely wanted to get a hidden story told. The only way to do that would be if I wrote that story. Hidden Princess is a fun and spectacular literary project.
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December 14, 2019What sets Making Mary apart from any other love story regardless of time, race and gender?
Dedra Muhammad Answered:
Making Mary is outwardly guised as a breathtaking love story. The love triad serves to navigate the sensibilities of the reader—the reader is compelled to fall in love with the characters. In fact, the passion readers possess for the extraordinarily well-developed characters gives the other themes unimaginable strength. Making Mary can be called the greatest love story ever because the character depth in each actor is profound. How Stella got her Groove Back, though entertaining, pales in comparison to the ardor and profundity present in Making Mary. This is not to subtract from the former, it is to suggest that readers are more privy to the characters’ subliminal mental processing in Making Mary. Readers are hence propelled to find solutions to their own everyday struggles since they can identify with the seemingly most vicious villains in Making Mary, or that part of self we tend to hide from others.
The Best Man can be considered a love story, yet Making Mary is more than a love story. A story of love is told, and that story happens to be the most heart-wrenching story I’ve ever read in my life. Yet to describe it as a love story alone would be misleading. Making Mary is like The Secret in the sense that there is a crystal clear connect when a reader is engaged in the story. I know right away if one has thumbed through it versus reading it. Some book club representatives have thumbed through it and went so far as to write reviews based on skimming. A review is incomplete if it attempts to describe a mere narrative which is void of the interpersonal syntheses or individual and social connectivity that make the issues shared in the book jump off the pages into the souls of readers.
To make it plain, I sometimes describe Making Mary as a love story to capture the attention of readers who are accustomed to a particular genre. Making Mary is thus quite palatable to those who like Zane, Eric Jerome Dickey, and Terri McMillan. Nonetheless, she can sit on any bookshelf next to the likes of the great Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison; she can cross-compare to Gone with the Wind and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and all would be in good company. Jane Eyre is a riveting love story if you will. Nonetheless, the history and themes are so powerful that it is considered required reading in plenty of honors literature courses. Though entertaining, Waiting to Exhale is not the type of literature I would expect my English professor would have the class discuss as a group. Terri McMillan obviously did not mean it for that purpose.
Some critics have stated that Making Mary should be considered required reading in an array of fields---and they have not made this claim because it is considered merely the most compelling love story of all times. In Gone with the Wind, the Civil War is a backdrop of an inspiring love story; in Making Mary, the Black Experience is the backdrop demonstrative of mental conditions that have spread over generations. Additionally noteworthy by God’s Grace is Making Mary appeals to a wide audience. This “love story” has captured the hearts of incarcerated males, females with doctorates, single mothers with less than a high school education, urban fiction readers, Harvard English graduates, male Caucasian teachers, working-class Caucasian women, history buffs, and many more.
Dedra Muhammad Answered:
Making Mary is outwardly guised as a breathtaking love story. The love triad serves to navigate the sensibilities of the reader—the reader is compelled to fall in love with the characters. In fact, the passion readers possess for the extraordinarily well-developed characters gives the other themes unimaginable strength. Making Mary can be called the greatest love story ever because the character depth in each actor is profound. How Stella got her Groove Back, though entertaining, pales in comparison to the ardor and profundity present in Making Mary. This is not to subtract from the former, it is to suggest that readers are more privy to the characters’ subliminal mental processing in Making Mary. Readers are hence propelled to find solutions to their own everyday struggles since they can identify with the seemingly most vicious villains in Making Mary, or that part of self we tend to hide from others.
The Best Man can be considered a love story, yet Making Mary is more than a love story. A story of love is told, and that story happens to be the most heart-wrenching story I’ve ever read in my life. Yet to describe it as a love story alone would be misleading. Making Mary is like The Secret in the sense that there is a crystal clear connect when a reader is engaged in the story. I know right away if one has thumbed through it versus reading it. Some book club representatives have thumbed through it and went so far as to write reviews based on skimming. A review is incomplete if it attempts to describe a mere narrative which is void of the interpersonal syntheses or individual and social connectivity that make the issues shared in the book jump off the pages into the souls of readers.
To make it plain, I sometimes describe Making Mary as a love story to capture the attention of readers who are accustomed to a particular genre. Making Mary is thus quite palatable to those who like Zane, Eric Jerome Dickey, and Terri McMillan. Nonetheless, she can sit on any bookshelf next to the likes of the great Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neal Hurston, Toni Morrison; she can cross-compare to Gone with the Wind and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and all would be in good company. Jane Eyre is a riveting love story if you will. Nonetheless, the history and themes are so powerful that it is considered required reading in plenty of honors literature courses. Though entertaining, Waiting to Exhale is not the type of literature I would expect my English professor would have the class discuss as a group. Terri McMillan obviously did not mean it for that purpose.
Some critics have stated that Making Mary should be considered required reading in an array of fields---and they have not made this claim because it is considered merely the most compelling love story of all times. In Gone with the Wind, the Civil War is a backdrop of an inspiring love story; in Making Mary, the Black Experience is the backdrop demonstrative of mental conditions that have spread over generations. Additionally noteworthy by God’s Grace is Making Mary appeals to a wide audience. This “love story” has captured the hearts of incarcerated males, females with doctorates, single mothers with less than a high school education, urban fiction readers, Harvard English graduates, male Caucasian teachers, working-class Caucasian women, history buffs, and many more.
December 14, 2019
This book was a pleasant surprise. I could not put it down.
December 24, 2019
I have to admit...this is one of the best books I've ever read. Wow.
September 8, 2021
Surprisingly addresses problems of the human condition. Set in early America but story applicable to another time, place or people.
Universal!
Universal!
December 24, 2010
the end left me wondering what in the hell had happened tho. like i didn't even know if i had just read a book.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews