Author Catherine Mullholland will be signing her book
“William Mullholland and the Rise of Los Angeles”
Saturday from 3-4 p.m. at the Skylight Books Booth, No. 320. ~ She
will also participate in the panel “Creating
California,” Saturday at 1 p.m. in Dodd 147.
By Barbara McGuire
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Most people don’t know what it feels like to drive down
the 405 freeway and see their last name listed as an off-ramp. But
for Catherine Mullholland, granddaughter of the famous engineer
William Mullholland, this roadside tribute doesn’t represent
even a portion of the vivid memories she possesses of her
grandfather.
In fact, these memories are so important to Mullholland, a UC
Berkeley alumna who studied English, that she recently preserved
them in her book, “William Mullholland and the Rise of Los
Angeles.” At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books,
Mullholland, 78, will participate in a panel discussion titled
“Creating California,” in addition to signing her
books.
“Having left Southern California for so many years, and
seeing that it was totally transformed from the Southern California
of my youth, I decided I wanted to write something about it to
preserve a little of my memory of the area, especially around the
area of my grandfather, William Mullholland, and the whole water
story, which seemed to me was getting increasingly distorted and
misrepresented,” Mullholland said in a phone interview from
her home in Los Angeles.
Mullholland said that her grandfather’s career basically
ended in tragedy when the Saint Francis dam, which he built in
1928, failed, killing over 400 people, making it the greatest
man-made disaster in the history of California.
Catherine said it was after this unfortunate incident that her
grandfather’s memory began to be misrepresented.
“That happened toward the end of his life, after a life of
hard work and triumph, and that tainted his story,” she said.
“At the time he was felt to be, by many people, a real
villain. He’ll always be a controversial figure because I
think men who alter landscapes and change the course of events in
history always are controversial.”
Though Mullholland has personal ties to the story, she depended
on extensive research rather than her own memories for her
non-fiction work, spending over five years gathering material from
several archives across the state, including UCLA’s special
collections. Knowing what a controversial individual her
grandfather has been, Mullholland said it was important for her to
do a lot of deep digging, because otherwise, nobody would believe
her.
Though she encountered various hardships during the course of
writing the novel, Mullholland said that one of the biggest
roadblocks was balancing her personal ties to the story with being
an objective author.
“I think the most difficult part as a writer was to find
the proper voice for telling the story because I didn’t want
it to be me telling a story about grandpa ““ I didn’t
want that intimate story,” she said. “On the other
hand, I didn’t want to detach myself because I couldn’t
pretend that I was not his granddaughter.
“So, to find the appropriate, dignified voice to tell the
story took a lot of soul searching and a lot of head
scratching,” she continued.
Mullholland eventually found the voice of a fairly formal,
objective historian, creating a story that reads like a biography
of William Mullholland’s life. Catherine said that the book
is a joy for anyone to read. William was more than just an
engineer; he was someone who led an interesting life.
She believes that in addition to this more personal side of
William Mullholland the Irish immigrant and sailor, readers will
also develop a better understanding of how Los Angeles evolved.
“I think especially a student could get a sense of what
the politics of the city were at that time; I learned a lot in
writing it,” she said. “I think it could be instructive
to someone who wanted to get a good understanding of city
building.”
For her next project, Catherine hopes to expand on the story of
the Mullhollands, bringing to light the women in the family. Due to
the space restrictions of her latest novel, she said she was forced
to omit many details about her grandfather’s domestic
life.
As a result, many people question her about the women of the
family. She hopes to answer these questions with another book
dedicated to these key players.
After her appearance at the Festival of Books, however,
Mullholland hopes to take a break before moving on to her next
project. For now she is looking forward to the weekend.
“I love the idea of the book fair because it’s a
little bit like a county fair, but instead of animals and rides for
children and farm products, you have intellectual products and city
products,” she said. “It brings writers and authors
together in much the spirit that you would have at a county fair
and I think that’s a lovely idea for a big city.”