Bastard Out of Carolina: A Novel by Dorothy Allison (English) Paperback Book

Description: Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison Allison spikes her critically acclaimed first novel, a National Book Award nominee, with pungent characters, and saturates it with a sense of its setting.--"Publishers Weekly." FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A profound portrait of family dynamics in the rural South and "an essential novel" (The New Yorker) "As close to flawless as any reader could ask for . . . The living language [Allison] has created is as exact and innovative as the language of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye." —The New York Times Book ReviewOne of The Atlantics Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years The publication of Dorothy Allisons Bastard Out of Carolina was a landmark event that won the author a National Book Award nomination and launched her into the literary spotlight. Critics have likened Allison to Harper Lee, naming her the first writer of her generation to dramatize the lives and language of poor whites in the South. Since its appearance, the novel has inspired an award-winning film and has been banned from libraries and classrooms, championed by fans, and defended by critics. Greenville County, South Carolina, is a wild, lush place that is home to the Boatwright family—a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard-drinking men who shoot up each others trucks, and indomitable women who get married young and age too quickly. At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather Daddy Glen, "cold as death, mean as a snake," becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney—and leads to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back. Author Biography Dorothy Allison is the acclaimed author of the nationally bestselling novel Bastard Out of Carolina, which was a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. She is also the author of the short story collection Trash and the bestselling novel Cavedweller, which was named a New York Times Notable Book. The recipient of numerous awards, she lives in Northern California. Review "Simply stunning . . . A wonderful work of fiction by a major talent." —The New York Times Book Review"A hell of a writer—tough and loose, clear and compassionate." —The Village Voice "Compulsively readable . . . Allison can make an ordinary moment transcendent with her sensuous mix of kitchen-sink realism and down-home drawl." —San Francisco Chronicle "Tough, plainspoken, and thoroughly unsentimental." —Los Angeles Times Book Review "This book will resonate within you like a gospel choir." —Barbara Kingsolver Review Quote "As close to flawless as any reader could ask for and any writer could hope for and aspire to ... The living language Allison has created is as exact and innovative as the language of Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION The Village Voice has called her "a hell of a writer-tough and loose, clear and compassionate." George Garrett, author and critic who reviewed Bastard Out of Carolina for The New York Times Book Review wanted to "blow a bugle to alert the reading public that a major new talent has arrived." Critics have likened her to William Faulkner, Flannery OConnor and Harper Lee, naming her the first writer of her generation to dramatize the lives and language of poor whites in the South. "She has an all-encompassing knowledge of what its like to be the other, the outsider," says Studs Terkel. Garrett agrees: "Its as if the people in Dorothea Lange photographs, in the work of Margaret Bourke-White and Walker Evans, were able to speak." But with a dead-center look that says "Dont mess with me, honey. Im liable to pour gravy on you," Allison defies easy characterization, as one writer for The New York Times put it. And she likes it that way. Part gospel singer, part country preacher, Allison often jokes that as a girl she wanted to be Janis Joplin. She has a wardrobe full of rhinestone-studded leather jackets and a desk drawer full of family snapshots. Shes a mean shot with a rifle, and her language is always dead-on: lush, beautiful, and brutal. "Dorothy sees everything", says Jewelle Gomez, the poet and novelist. Allison has spent her entire life telling forbidden stories, pulling her best fiction out from the edge of terror and the courage to heal. In Two or Three Things I Know for Sure , a short memoir she published in 1995, Allison writes: "Where I was born--Greenville, South Carolina--smelled like nowhere else Ive been. Cut wet grass, split green apples, baby shit and beer bottles, cheap makeup and motor oil. Everything was ripe, everything was rotting. Hound dogs butted my calves. People shouted in the distance; crickets boomed in my ears. That country was beautiful, I swear to you, the most beautiful place Ive ever been. Beautiful and terrible." Allison wants the hard and terrible stories, she demands them from herself. And her readers wait for them. This autobiographical novel about a young girl in the rural South facing abuse and betrayal won high critical acclaim and a National Book Award nomination upon its release in 1992. The power of Bastard Out of Carolina is simultaneously narrative, emotional, and political. "The novel is mean," Allison says, "meant to rip off all that facade of imagination and lies we place around sexual violence and children." The backdrop of this tale is Greenville, South Carolina, and its narrator is "Bone" Boatwright, a twelve year old trying to remember and comprehend the events that led to her being abandoned by her mother. Bone and her sister Reese are surrounded by colorful characters, most of them relations. Her uncles are feared by men and adored by women, while her aunts are long-suffering yet defiant. Her grandmother is a strict matriarch who loves her brood but "always loved her boy children more." While Anney Boatwright and her two girls face many trials --Bones illegitimacy, the death of Reeses father --their real trouble starts when Anney marries Glenn Waddell, the black sheep of a prominent family, whose most outstanding characteristics are his uncontrollable temper and oversized hands. Though Daddy Glenn at first offers the girls sugary reassurances, when Anney miscarries his child he turns against them. Instead of lashing out at his wife, Glenn chooses the weakest target, Bone, and tears the family apart by claiming to need Anneys love and care more than her own young daughters do. Even as Bone suffers immense hardship, she is not alone. Fierce determination and a loving extended family help her through, and though our heartsache to think of what Bone must bear, her perseverance leaves us hope for her future. Allison says she designed the book so that the reader meets all these people --Bone, Anney, and Glenn, the wild uncles and long-suffering aunts --and becomes gradually drawn into their world through the character of Bone. "You see what happens --Daddy Glens cruelty, the sexual violence --only through the filter of Bone trying to survive. It took me a long time to get it right. About 10 years." The Showtime movie based on the book, directed by Anjelica Huston and starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, was funded by Ted Turner, but he pronounced it too graphic to be shown on his network. In several states, Bastard has been banned from classrooms and school libraries. Most recently, the book was distributed to Maine high-schoolers by private citizens, in protest of the Maine Supreme Courts November 1997 decision that allowed the schools to continue their ban of the book. ABOUT DOROTHY ALLISON Dorothy Allison was born in 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina, to a fourteen-year-old unwed mother. The only father figure she ever knew was a violently abusive man who used her mothers desperate desire for respectability to tie the terrified family to him. Though it was Allisons mother who placed her daughter in these precarious situations by not challenging her husband, Allison credits her as an inspiration. While the Greenville community disdained Allison for being poor and illegitimate, Allisons mother insisted her child was bright. She kept a jar of money she called the college fund, and though she had to empty it on several occasions and Allisons college was paid for by a National Merit Scholarship, just the presence of that jar convinced Allison that she had a right to excel. The first of her family to graduate high school, Allison went on to get a bachelors degree from Florida Presbyterian College and a masters from New Yorks School of Social Research. Allison credits emerging feminism with much of her redemption. Suddenly, getting angry did not make her a misfit, and the movement gave her the strength to reclaim her self from years of put downs and abuse. When she began her writing career, Allison kept close to the gay and feminist presses, distrusting the establishment and believing that "literature was written by men, judged by men." In 1988 Firebrand Press published Trash , a book of short stories, that started to win Allison notice. This was followed by The Women Who Hate Me: Poetry, 1980-1990 , which secured Allisons stature as a respected talent within the gay and lesbian community. When Bastard Out of Carolina was published by Dutton in 1992, Allison achieved mainstream success. Bastard was greeted with rave reviews from the Village Voice , the San Francisco Chronicle , and The New York Times Book Review , and nominated for the National Book Award. Allison returned to a small press with Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature , a critically acclaimed collection of essays. In 1995, she published a short memoir, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure , using text and family photographs. In March 1998, Allisons most ambitious work yet was released. Cavedweller is an epic novel that chronicles the trials and victories of four strong women and the opportunities they wrest from the unforgiving terrain of small town Georgia. In addition to her own books, Allison has contributed to many publications, ranging from The New York Times to Harpers and Allure . Allison lives in Northern California with her partner and their son, and continues to pursue "the thing all writers want--for the world to break open in response to my story...The same thing I have always wanted." DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Bone is nicknamed when, at birth, her "Uncle Earle announced that I was no bigger than a knucklebone." In what way does this name come to define her character? Does it reflect on her life in any way other than her size? When Bone is born, Anney is fifteen, dirt poor, and unmarried. With so many obstacles, why is she so focused on Bones birth certificate, which no one but her will see? How does she pass this preoccupation on to Bone? Bones identity as a female shifts tremendously throughout the book. She worships her uncles and takes pride in being a tomboy. Yet, on page 91 she says, "I liked being one of the women with my aunts, liked being a part of something nasty and strong and separate from my big rough boy-cousins and the whole world of spitting, growling, overbearing males." How does gender play a role in the book? How does Bones relationship with other characters in the book shape her conception of her own gender? In the middle of the book, Bone suddenly becomes quite religious. On page 150 she claims, "I became fascinated with the idea of being saved, not just welcoming Jesus into my heart but the seriousness of the struggle between salvation and damnation, between good and evil, life and death." What do you think inspires this newfound fanaticism? How do her religious feelings relate to her relationship with Daddy Glen? With her feelings of illegitimacy? The issue of race is consistently present on the periphery of the book. At certain points, Bone shows particular interest in black people. For example, on page 83, when her Aunt Alma moves into an apartment building downtown, Bone becomes fascinated by one of the black children living below her relatives. Similarly, Bone and Shannon Pearls fight on page 170 is provoked by Bones anger at Shannons familys racism. Why is race so important to Bone? How does race play a part in her own identity as a white person? As an illegitimate child? In Excerpt from Book 1 Ive been called Bone all my life, but my names Ruth Anne. I was named for and by my oldest aunt--Aunt Ruth. My mama didnt have much to say about it, since strictly speaking, she wasnt there. Mama and a carful of my aunts and uncles had been going out to the airport to meet one of the cousins who was on his way back from playing soldier. Aunt Alma, Aunt Ruth, and her husband, Travis, were squeezed into the front, and Mama was stretched out in back, sound asleep. Mama hadnt adjusted to pregnant life very happily, and by the time she was eight months gone, she had a lot of trouble sleeping. She said that when she lay on her back it felt like I was crushing her, when she lay on her side it felt like I was climbing up her backbone, and there was no rest on her stomach at all. Her only comfort was the backseat of Uncle Traviss Chevy, which was jacked up so high that it easily cradled little kids or pregnant women. Moments after lying back into that seat, Mama had fallen into her first deep sleep in eight months. She slept so hard, even the accident didnt wake her up. My aunt Alma insists to this day that what happened was in no way Uncle Traviss fault, but I know that the first time I ever saw Uncle Travis sober was when I was seventeen and they had just removed half his stomach along with his liver. I cannot imagine that he hadnt been drinking. Theres no question in my mind but that they had all been drinking, except Mama, who never could drink, and certainly not when she was pregnant. No, Mama was just asleep and everyone else was drunk. And what they did was plow headlong into a slow-moving car. The front of Uncle Traviss Chevy accordioned; the back flew up; the aunts and Uncle Travis were squeezed so tight they just bounced a little; and Mama, still asleep with her hands curled under her chin, flew right over their heads, through the windshield, and over the car they hit. Going through the glass, she cut the top of her head, and when she hit the ground she bruised her backside, but other than that she wasnt hurt at all. Of course, she didnt wake up for three days, not till after Granny and Aunt Ruth had signed all the papers and picked out my name. I am Ruth for my aunt Ruth, and Anne for my mama. I got the nickname Bone shortly after Mama brought me home from the hospital and Uncle Earle announced that I was "no bigger than a knucklebone" and Aunt Ruths youngest girl, Deedee, pulled the blanket back to see "the bone." Its lucky Im not Mattie Raylene like Granny wanted. But Mama had always promised to name her first daughter after her oldest sister, and Aunt Ruth thought Mamas child should just naturally carry Mamas name since they had come so close to losing her. Other than the name, they got just about everything else wrong. Neither Aunt Ruth nor Granny could write very clearly, and they hadnt bothered to discuss how Anne would be spelled, so it wound up spelled three different ways on the form--Ann, Anne, and Anna. As for the name of the father, Granny refused to speak it after she had run him out of town for messing with her daughter, and Aunt Ruth had never been sure of his last name anyway. They tried to get away with just scribbling something down, but if the hospital didnt mind how a babys middle name was spelled, they were definite about having a fathers last name. So Granny gave one and Ruth gave another, the clerk got mad, and there I was--certified a bastard by the state of South Carolina. Mama always said it would never have happened if shed been awake. "After all," she told my aunt Alma, "they dont ask for a marriage license before they put you up on the table." She was convinced that she could have bluffed her way through it, said she was married firmly enough that no one would have questioned her. "Its only when you bring it to their attention that they write it down." Granny said it didnt matter anyhow. Who cared what was written down? Did people read courthouse records? Did they ask to see your birth certificate before they sat themselves on your porch? Everybody who mattered knew, and she didnt give a rats ass about anybody else. She teased Mama about the damn silly paper with the red stamp on the bottom. "What was it? You intended to frame that thing? You wanted something on your wall to prove you done it right?" Granny could be mean where her pride was involved. "The child is proof enough. Ant no stamp on her nobody can see." If Granny didnt care, Mama did. Mama hated to be called trash, hated the memory of every day shed ever spent bent over other peoples peanuts and strawberry plants while they stood tall and looked at her like she was a rock on the ground. The stamp on that birth certificate burned her like the stamp she knew theyd tried to put on her. No-good, lazy, shiftless . Shed work her hands to claws, her back to a shovel shape, her mouth to a bent and awkward smile--anything to deny what Greenville County wanted to name her. Now a soft-talking black-eyed man had done it for them--set a mark on her and hers. It was all she could do to pull herself up eight days after I was born and go back to work waiting tables with a tight mouth and swollen eyes. Mama waited a year. Four days before my first birthday and a month past her sixteenth, she wrapped me in a blanket and took me to the courthouse. The clerk was polite but bored. He had her fill out a form and pay a two-dollar fee. Mama filled it out in a fine schoolgirls hand. She hadnt been to school in three years, but she wrote letters for everyone in the family and was proud of her graceful, slightly canted script. "What happened to the other one?" the clerk asked. Mama didnt look up from my head on her arm. "It got torn across the bottom." The clerk looked at her more closely, turned a glance on me. "Is that right?" He went to the back and was gone a long time. Mama stood, quiet but stubborn, at the counter. When he came back, he passed her the paper and stayed to watch her face. It was the same, identical to the other one. Across the bottom in oversized red-inked block letters it read, "ILLEGITIMATE." Mama drew breath like an old woman with pleurisy, and flushed pink from her neck to her hairline. "I dont want it like this," she blurted. "Well, little lady," he said in a long, slow drawl. Behind him she could see some of the women clerks standing in a doorway, their faces almost as flushed as her own but their eyes bright with an entirely different emotion. "This is how its got to be. The facts have been established." He drew the word out even longer and louder so that it hung in the air between them like a neon reflection of my mamas blush-- established . The women in the doorway shook their heads and pursed their lips. One mouthed to the other, "Some people." Mama made her back straighten, bundled me closer to her neck, and turned suddenly for the hall door. "You forgetting your certificate," the man called after her, but she didnt stop. Her hands on my body clamped so tight I let out a high, thin wail. Mama just held on and let me scream. She waited another year before going back, that time taking my aunt Ruth with her and leaving me with Granny. "I was there," Aunt Ruth promised them, "and it was really my fault. In so much excitement I just got confused, what with Anney here looking like she was dead to the world and everybody shouting and running around. You know, there was a three-car accident brought in just minutes after us." Aunt Ruth gave the clerk a very sincere direct look, awkwardly trying to keep her eyes wide and friendly. "You know how these things can happen." "Oh, I do," he said, enjoying it all immensely. The form he brought out was no different from the others. The look he gave my mama and my aunt was pure righteous justification. "Whatd you expect?" he seemed to be saying. His face was set and almost gentle, but his eyes laughed at them. My aunt came close to swinging her purse at his head, but Mama caught her arm. That time she took the certificate copy with her. "Might as well have something for my two dollars," she said. At seventeen, she was a lot older than she had been at sixteen. The next year she went alone, and the year after. That same year she met Lyle Parsons and started thinking more about marrying him than dragging down to the courthouse again. Uncle Earle teased her that if she lived with Lyle for seven years, she could get the same result without paying a courthouse lawyer. "The law never done us no good. Might as well get on without it." Mama quit working as a waitress soon after marrying Lyle Parsons, though she wasnt so sure that was a good idea. "Were gonna need things," she told him, but he wouldnt listen. Lyle was one of the sweetest boys the Parsonses ever produced, a soft-eyed, soft-spoken, too-pretty boy tired of being his mamas baby. Totally serious about providing well for his family and proving himself a man, he got Mama pregnant almost immediately and didnt want her to go out to work at all. But pumping gas and changing tires in his cousins Texaco station, he made barely enough to pay the rent. Mama tried working part-time in a grocery store but gave it up when she got so pregnant she couldnt lift boxes. It was easier to sit a stool on the line at the Stevens factory until Reese was born, but Lyle didnt like that at all. "Hows that baby gonna grow my long legs if you always sitting bent over?" he complained. He wanted to borrow money or take a second job, anything to keep his pretty new wife out of the mill. "Honey girl," he called her, "sweet thing." "Dumpling," she called him back, "sugar tit," and when no one could hear, "manchild." She love Details ISBN0452297753 Author Dorothy Allison Audience Age 14-18 Language English ISBN-10 0452297753 ISBN-13 9780452297753 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY FIC Short Title BASTARD OUT OF CA-20TH ANNIV/E Edition Description Anniversary Edition 20th Affiliation Department of Nuclear Medicine, Division of Advanced Medical Science, Residence NC, US Year 2012 Publication Date 2012-02-01 Subtitle A Novel Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2012-02-01 NZ Release Date 2012-02-01 US Release Date 2012-02-01 UK Release Date 2012-02-01 Pages 336 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Imprint Penguin USA Replaces 9780452287051 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:141702855;

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