Last week, the writer Dorothy Allison died at the age of 75 in her California home.
If you don’t know that name immediately, if you’re a reader, you should know her most famous book, the semi-autobiographical novel, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” a bestseller later adapted into a film directed by Anjelica Huston, and a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award.
“Bastard Out of Carolina” is one of the books in my personal collection that I have kept in physical proximity the longest. It would take me no more than two steps to retrieve the book from the shelf in my office where I’m currently working. I know exactly where it is on that shelf. I know its spine, its story.
I have owned this book for over 30 years, essentially since the first months of its release. I’ve read it twice, the most recent time at least 15 years ago. In my opinion, it’s one of the most important American books published in my lifetime.
I will own this book until I also shuffle off this mortal coil.
These thoughts are a testament to both the power of books and reading in general, and the potency of “Bastard Out of Carolina” in particular.
“Bastard Out of Carolina” is the story of Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright, born out of wedlock to a 15-year-old mother (Anney), and into a world of rural South Carolina in which she will primarily know tragedy, hardship and abuse. At 17, in a glimmer of hope, Anney marries Lyle and has another daughter (Reese), but Lyle is soon killed in an accident. Now with two daughters, Anney struggles on until she meets Glenn Waddell, the son of a local dairy farmer, who Anney marries after becoming pregnant with his child.
The child is stillborn. Glenn is already sexually abusing Bone, now 13. Things get even darker from there as the story unfolds in a frank and unsparing style. It is a story you cannot turn away from, even if you wished to.
The novel is told retrospectively from the point of view of an adult Bone who has clearly survived, perhaps even thrived to the extent that she’s able to tell this story. This was Allison’s life, lived unapologetically as someone writing so openly about her past, and the joy she’d found in embracing her lesbian identity and sexuality.
I think of Allison and “Bastard Out of Carolina” as an example of an idea articulated by another famous southern writer, Flannery O’Connor, who said: “People without hope not only don’t write novels, but what is more to the point, they don’t read them. They don’t take long looks at anything, because they lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience, and the novel, of course, is a way to have experience.”
Perhaps this is what I felt when I first read the novel as a relatively young man who was not wholly naïve, but who previously had no access to these sorts of stories, had not imagined the horrors of that kind of world.
“Bastard Out of Carolina” is a long look at the darkest evil that can be inflicted on a person, but here was an artist in Dorothy Allison who was born out of that evil. This obviously does not justify the evil, but it is a testament to the resiliency of spirit some possess, and the power of literature to impact the lives of others.
It is deeply pleasing to know that Dorothy Allison lived a happy and fulfilled adult life. Her work will endure long after this passing.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “Camino Ghosts” by John Grisham
2. “The Princess of Las Vegas” by Chris Bohjalian
3. “Murder at Haven’s Rock” by Kelley Armstrong
4. “The Full Moon Coffee Shop” by Mai Mochizuki
5. “Norse Mythology” by Neil Gaiman
— Julia M., Arlington Heights
Julia looks like she’s interested in suspense/crime with a little extra attitudinal zing. How about “A Beautiful Crime” by Christopher Bollen?
1. “Persuasion” by Jane Austen
2. “Emma” by Jane Austen
3. “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley
4. “Turtles All the Way Down” by John Green
5. “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin
— Lilly P., Glenview
I’m told by Lilly that these are all re-reads, so I’m going to try to recommend something that fits her desires, but which she hasn’t read before: “The Adults” by Alison Espach.
1. “The Perfect Couple” by Elin Hilderbrand
2. “The It Girl” by Ruth Ware
3. “The Housemaid” by Freida McFadden
4. “A Court of Mist and Fury” by Sarah J. Maas
5. “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” by Susanna Clarke
— Amy P., Milwaukee
If this choice is a hit, there are two more books right behind it because it’s part of a trilogy, “The Magicians” by Lev Grossman.
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.
