"As close to flawless as any reader could ask for." —The New York Times Book Review
“An essential novel”
– The New Yorker
Bastard Out of Carolina
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 other's 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.
The publication of Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina was a landmark event.
The novel's profound portrait of family dynamics in the rural South 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.
From the author of the "flawless" (The New York Times Book Review) classic Bastard Out of Carolina comes Cavedweller, once again demonstrating Allison's unmatched strengths as a storyteller.
A book that resonates with uncompromising candor and incandescence, Trash is sure to captivate Allison's legion of readers.
Cavedweller
Cavedweller tackles questions of forgiveness, mother-daughter bonds, and the strength of the human spirit.
When Delia Byrd packs up her old Datsun and her daughter Cissy and gets on the Santa Monica Freeway heading south and east, she is leaving everything she has known for ten years: the tinsel glitter of the rock 'n' roll world; her dreams of singing and songwriting; and a life lived on credit cards and whiskey with a man who made promises he couldn't keep.
Delia Byrd is going back to Cayro, Georgia, to reclaim her life--and the two daughters she left behind...
Told in the incantatory voice of one of America's most eloquent storytellers, Cavedweller is a sweeping novel of the human spirit, the lost and hidden recesses of the heart, and the place where violence and redemption intersect.
TRASH
Trash, Allison's landmark collection, laid the groundwork for her critically acclaimed Bastard Out of Carolina, the National Book Award finalist that was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "simply stunning...a wonderful work of fiction by a major talent."
In addition to Allison's classic stories, this new edition of Trash features "Stubborn Girls and Mean Stories," an introduction in which Allison discusses the writing of Trash and "Compassion," a never-before-published short story.
First published in 1988, the award-winning Trash showcases Allison at her most fearlessly honest and startlingly vivid. The limitless scope of human emotion and experience are depicted in stories that give aching and eloquent voice to the terrible wounds we inflict on those closest to us. These are tales of loss and redemption; of shame and forgiveness; of love and abuse and the healing power of storytelling.
As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, steeped in the hard-won wisdom of experience, expresses the strength of her unique vision with beauty and eloquence.
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Bastard Out of Carolina, nominated for the 1992 National Book Award for fiction, introduced Dorothy Allison as one of the most passionate and gifted writers of her generation. Now, in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, she takes a probing look at her family's history to give us a lyrical, complex memoir that explores how the gossip of one generation can become legends for the next.
Illustrated with photographs from the author's personal collection, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure tells the story of the Gibson women -- sisters, cousins, daughters, and aunts -- and the men who loved them, often abused them, and, nonetheless, shared their destinies. With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse.
Skin
Compelling collection of autobiographical narratives, essays, and performance pieces.
Published in 1994, the book contains original essays as well as updated versions of essays that appeared in anthologies and magazines like New York Native, The Village Voice, and Forum. Allison gives the reader her take on topics including her difficult childhood, race- and class-based schisms within the lesbian community, feminism, pornography, sadomasochism, and the transcending effect that literature can have on children.
Razor sharp, angry, and full of passion, Dorothy Allison stands her ground and refuses to leave any of the hard stuff behind.
the women who hate ME
Whether writing about her dirt-poor Southern childhood, its brutalities and its love, or her lesbian lust--her outlaw sexuality--her poetry is cheeky, touching, and on target as she speaks the truth to the women she loves.
Allison was one of the key figures in what became known as the Feminist Sex Wars. She was a panelist at the 1982 Barnard Conference on Sexuality. It was picketed by the New York chapter of Women Against Pornography, who called the panelists "anti-feminist terrorists." Some protesters accused Allison of supporting the sexual abuse of children because of the graphic content in her literary works.
She responded to such critics in this collection, The Women Who Hate Me: Poems by Dorothy Allison.