Chamblee54

This is a repost from 2018. Dorothy Allison passed away November 6, 2024. … Bastard Out of Carolina is a much praised novel. Dorothy Allison wrote it. When I saw it at a used book sale, I hesitated. The lady taking the money said, “if you don’t want that book, I will take it.” I went ahead and gave the lady one dollar, and took home BOOC.
Bone is the illegitimate hero of BOOC. Her birth certificate has ILLEGITIMATE stamped across the bottom, in “oversized red-inked block letters.” Anney, the mother, makes repeated visits to the county courthouse, trying to get the certificate de-bastardized. Finally, when Bone is 12, Anney succeeds. By then it is too late.
The Boatwrights are a large family. They live in Greenville, South Carolina. BOOC is set in the fifties. PG was never really sure how many aunts and uncles Bone has. Maybe that is the idea.
The characters in BOOC are what some people would call white trash. Money is always a problem. The men drink and fight. The women do what they can. The kids are kids, until it is their turn to get locked up, or knocked up.
After Anney has two girls, she meets Glen Waddell. He is the villain of BOOC. An all around fuck up, Daddy Glen sexually abuses Bone. This is only spelled out in two episodes. The verbal/physical abuse is there all the time.
An Essential Novel About Poverty, Bigotry, and Sexual Abuse, Twenty-Five Years Later is an article that googled its way into this book report. Some urban writers are fascinated by racism. Dorothy Allison keeps racism in its place. There are no black characters in BOOC. The Boatwrights say n****r. The reader comes to learn that the Boatwrights would have been just as poor, just as drunk, and just as trashy in an all white county. Whiteness is part of the story, just like the muddy river flowing past Aunt Raylene’s house.
BOOC has a lot of details, and atmosphere. In a radio interview, Dorothy Allison says something. “Oh, I want that — you know what Nabokov called it, that sob in the spine, that where you’re reading and suddenly it just stops you, and you’re like ah! That’s what I want. I want you to take a deep breath, and if I’m really lucky, I want you to throw the book at the wall.” Paperbacks do less damage.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the pictures in Missouri. The date was August, 1938.

</

</