Trash

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Description

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.

A book that resonates with uncompromising candor and incandescence, Trash is sure to captivate Allison's legion of readers and win her a devoted new following.

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Customer Reviews

Ten essential stories of the "bad poor", with five more specialized stories of lesbianism
Here is how Dorothy Allison introduces herself in TRASH:

"The central fact of my life is that I was born in 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina, the bastard daughter of a white woman from a desperately poor family, a girl who had left the seventh grade the year before, worked as a waitress, and was just a month past fifteen when she birthed me. That fact, the inescapable impact of being born in a condition of poverty that this society finds shameful, contemptible, and somehow oddly deserved, has had dominion over me * * *."

The literate, well-heeled portion of our society that runs mainstream media tends to ignore the poor, and when forced to acknowledge their existence it often prefers to romanticize or mythologize them as the sturdy, stoic, hard-working backbone of America. That wasn't Dorothy Allison's folks. "We were the bad poor. We were men who drank and couldn't keep a job; women, invariably pregnant before marriage, who quickly became worn, fat, and old from working too many hours and bearing too many children; and children with runny noses, watery eyes, and wrong attitudes." Her people were trash.

Originally published in 1988, TRASH is a collection of 15 powerful stories of life as experienced by Dorothy Allison. Judging from this book alone (I know very little about Allison from beyond the covers of the book), the stories must have a high quotient of autobiography.

In ten of the stories, the "bad poor" are front and center, in discomfiting bluntness and detail. Allison limns the world of textile mills, waitressing, belt-wielding (and much worse) step-fathers, fishing camps, gospel-singing, shoplifting, male lust, and cheap alcohol delivered in a myriad of ways. It is just as much America as 50th floor corner offices, ivy-covered college campuses, health clubs, and amber waves of grain.

Exacerbating her pariah-hood, Allison is lesbian. In five of the stories in this collection, it is lesbianism that is front and center, including some very graphic sex scenes. To me, those stories are misplaced. If TRASH had been presented as a memoir I would feel differently, but it is a collection of stories entitled "Trash" and billed as a stark portrayal of Southern poverty. The lesbianism, though very much a part of Allison's life, is not necessarily part of the existence of the bad poor and its presence in this collection distracts from the depiction of the bad poor. No doubt I am somewhat influenced by the fact that I am repulsed by the scenes of lesbian sex - just as I am repulsed or annoyed by scenes of male homosexual or male/female sex. (I have never bought or browsed through any collection of overtly sexual or erotic stories; sex, like prayer, is too personal to experience vicariously.) I think the lesbian stories would be more effective portrayals (at least for non-lesbians) of the social challenges of lesbianhood without the raw sex, but even so I believe they should not have been included in a collection of stories about trash.

Ultimately, TRASH is about surviving and struggling to maintain some dignity, some sense of self-worth. For Allison, both anger and humor have been essential in doing so. The stories are well-written, if not brilliantly so. Ten of them are well worth reading by everyone in this country. Indeed, if the book contained only those ten stories I would give it five stars.

2010-03-03 (Santa Fe, NM) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Dysfunctional family life
That Dorothy Allisons has had a horrible childhood can come as no surprise if you have read her Bastard out of Carolina. Trash is about both her childhood and her adult life. Trash is a collection of short stories and poems, and some of the short stories are very hard core.
Allison grew up way out in the sticks in Southern USA, where thrashings, violence, drinking, and incest were part of saily life in her large, white-trash family. Despite all this, her dysfunctional family stuck together in a bizarre way and perhaps there was even love between the some of the family members.

As a young grown up Dorothy Allison goes far, far away and manages to get into college and breaks her social heritage. At university she comes out of the closet, and some of the short stories are about her life out of the closet in USA in the 1970's.
The short stories can stand alone, but are best if all of them are read. Like I said, it is pretty hard core reading and some of the short stories are most definitely not for weak souls.

Allison's style is a little 70's-ish and her poems were not my cup of tea. But Trash is still a strong book I want to read again at some point.

2008-10-25 (Copenhagen V, Denmark) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Excellent Shipping - Book in excellent condition.
I was very pleased with this book - the packaging, the timeliness of the shipper and the condition of the book. From one Southern belle to another, Dorothy Allison rocks the Mason Dixon Line! A must read.

2008-01-14 | Crazy Lady (Somewhere in the South) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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unstoppable
In the shadows of society lie the ugly truth of what many must overcome just to survive. Set in, then rural South, this book moves you through the landscape of poverty, sadness, and grave dysfunction. When education is absent and substance abuse prevalent, unthinkable tragedy can occur. But the will of a girl to survive in spite of her lack of resources is heartbreaking, but the encouragement of at least one person in her life helps her overcome adversity. Written with detail to the usually inviisible details of life, Trash draws you in & holds you until the end. Even then the book haunted me with sadness for what some children have faced. While it is a novel, it closely aligns with real life events.

2007-09-14 | Appreciate Arts (Advance, NC United States) | Helpful Votes: 4 | Rating: 4

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Winner of two Lambda Literary Awards
Powerful and not to be missed. This is a collection of autobiographical narratives, essays, and performance pieces that you will never (and should never) forget.

The author Tee A. Corinne in her book `Lovers: love and sex stories' says "Dorothy Allison crafts from her own life powerful erotic passages that defy circumspect parameters..."

This was the most intense reading I have done in a long time. This should be recommended reading in all colleges and universities.

Not to be missed other titles from the author are - Bastard Out of Carolina, Skin, and The Women Who Hate Me. More information can be found at he author's web page.

If you need to feel a whole lot better about how the author triumphed over her horrendous childhood she and her family of choice are profiled in the book - Love Makes a Family: Portraits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents and Their Families by Peggy Gillespie, Kath Weston, Gigi Kaeser, and April Martin (Paperback - May 1999).

2006-10-24 | Bronwyn (Tampa, Florida) | Helpful Votes: 3 | Rating: 5

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Bastard out of Carolina: (Plume Essential Edition)

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• ISBN13: 9780452287051
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Description

Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright, an illegitimate young girl, dreams of escaping her Greenville County, South Carolina, home, her notorious, hard-living family, and the unwanted attentions of her abusive stepfather, Daddy Glen. A first novel. Reprint. National Book Award finalist. NYT.

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Customer Reviews

AMAZING BOOK
I read this book for my college women's literature class, and I loved it. This is a fictional book, but it is based off the author's actual childhood. I could not put this book down once I started reading it.

2010-08-12 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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wonderful
This is a hauntingly captivating tale that is hard to read but impossible to put down. Bone is an unforgettable character based largely on the author's own life. Bone's "white trash" family IS trashy but at the same time there is often an underlying love and support among its members. Still, the final betrayal of Bone by her mother is unforgivable and an outrage. I found this to be a wonderful book well worth the time to read.

2010-07-18 | book lover (Danville, Virginia United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Brought Back Very Old Memories
I heard Ms. Allison speak on South Carolina Public Radio during the Christmas break. After hearing her, I thought I would read her novel set in Greenville, SC. I am about the same age as she, and I also grew up in Greenville, SC. I was truly intrigued by her story and the characters in it. I know these characters. I and my whole family worked in the JP Stevens "cotton mills" at one time or another; my father for more than 40 years. I worked with and lived around these folks in and around the mill villages on the outskirts of Greenville, until my family finally moved out to a little house on the "White Horse Road" that she speaks of often in the book.

My only complaint, besides the very sad ending, was that some of the facts about Greenville were not correct. I know that this is a work of fiction and unless you lived there in the 50's and 60's, it wouldn't matter. It does seem, however, that if the writer was to emphasize the fact that the story was in Greenville so strongly, that she would use accurate landmark names.

Still, I enjoyed this book greatly. I highly recommend it, and I look forward to reading more of her work.

2010-01-12 (Goose Creek, SC) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Remarkable book
I read this book a while back, and it's a testimony to the realism of the story that I couldn't recall if this was a novel or a biography. Bone is truly an unforgettable character, searingly broken and misused, yet brimming with a courage few of us have known. It is difficult to find a fault in this book. It is honest, it is powerful, it is original, it is even suspenseful.

This is a book you should read because it is not only worth reading, but because it should make you a better human being.

2009-12-24 | Amazon author&seeyourselfinprint.com (North Port, Florida) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Definite Page Turner
I could not put this book down! Dorothy Allison does such a great job of putting this novel together and keeping you wanting to find out what's next. When I was done with the book I was still itching to know what happened with the characters...I even googled Dorothy Allison to see if I could find more info. It's a must-read for anyone who is interested in something new & different. It is definitely not for the very reserved & conservative unless you're willing to open your mind a bit as she uses some very "out there" themes.

2009-11-06 (Chicago!) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

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• ISBN13: 9780452273405

Description

An autobiographical work adapted from a performance piece explores such topics love and loss, beauty and terror, and the intricacies of family love and hatred, while illuminating the harsh world of rural poverty in the South. Reprint. NYT.

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Customer Reviews

lovely photographs
very emotional, with beautiful family pictures, and moving short descriptions of characters, scenes of everyday life.

the situation is all very sad, beginning with the funeral of the mother.

it's not a novel or short story... just memories, without much linearity.

some pages are hard to read: plain cruelty of the world.

but I loved it.

2009-09-24 | sabina anzuategui (sao paulo, brazil) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Each of these could be a memoir all its own
I had picked up this book (at least) once before, and really didn't think much of it. I would only get about 8 or 9 pages into it and I would put it down. I started it again a few days ago and this time I kept reading. I read it all (it took me a few days to get through it) but I'm very glad I gave it another chance. Dorothy really has a story to tell.

Her writing style encourages me to pick up a pencil and pad of paper and begin writing my own "Two or three thing I know for sure"

Thank you Dorothy for getting me started on my own memoir!

2009-09-22 | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Spare and evocative book
This is a quick read, but packs a lot of power. The author isn't afraid to lay her life out for you, and all her emotions, past and present. Its doubly touching to note, this book was originally an oral presentation she wrote.

2008-10-22 (Austin, TX United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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It's never the same thing
Dorothy Allison's Aunt Dot said she only new two or three things for sure and added, "Of course,they are never the same things." This slim volume, a family history memoir, celebrates the way that women know and affirms that what women know is different from what men know. Allison not only tells an engaging story, she tells her story with clear compassion for all concerned. That doesn't mean she hedges around about the truth. It means that one of the things she knows for sure is that "if we are not beautiful to each other, then we cannot know beauty in any form." Compassion goes along with being beautiful to one another. This book is both honest and forgiving. and as such reminds us to look with an open heart on our life circumstances. Don't compound the hurt or the suffering with hate suggests Allison in a mere 94 pages. I suspect most people will want to read this book more than once. I pull it out when when I feel my heart closing and each time, the thing I come to know is never the same thing.

2008-07-29 | Author of Between Two Women (Jamestown, Ca USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 5

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Allison shares her secrets, plumbs her own depths to find joy
"Let me tell you a story," is how the author of BASTARD OUT OF CAROLINA begins her autobiographical journey, alerting the reading audience from the start that she is a storyteller first and foremost above all else: above her being a woman, a daughter, a sister, a lesbian, a survivor. Indeed, she creates and tells stories in order to better define those qualities she has, the labels she possesses, and with an effort towards cleansing her soul of ugliness in favor of beauty and hope.

Originally designed as a performance piece, that she staged in San Francisco at The Lab in August of 1991, Allison reworked the spoken narrative into this flowing, written memoir.

There are many inspiring, defiantly unsentimental portions of the book, which serve to display Allison's valiant attempts to heal herself while becoming an artist. Unfortunately, there are also Anne Lamott-type lapses into cliche and sap and faux-inspiring writing that fails to ring completely true. The pictures of Allison and the family she writes about that accompany the book are vivid and add an even greater genuineness to the text.

A scene that encapsulates the tone of the book, as well as describing Allison's life-long struggle and that of the girls and women she loves, appears near the end of the book, when Dorothy is visiting her sister and pre-adolescent niece. "I looked into my niece's sunburned frightened face. Like her mama, like her grandmama, like her aunts -- she had that hungry desperate look that trusts nothing and wants everything. She didn't think she was pretty. She didn't think she was worth anything at all." Heartbreaking, real and a truth that haunts the women in Allison's family from generation to generation until... when? That's a question that the author refuses to deal with, probably more out of fear for its answer than anything else.

On a side note, I saw Allison appear live at an event in Orange County in 2006. She was fiery, profane, fearless, and struck me as a serious truthseeker with a motivating message for aspiring writers and aspiring humanists. I was at first taken aback by her brashness, her unapologetic stance about people and politics and education. But as she continued on, she became less guarded, more sympathetic, and ultimately more loving than someone who's seen so much hatred and so much abuse should be expected to be. She was, truly, an inspiring figure up there on the stage.

2008-02-21 | book-y (Los Angeles) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 4

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Cavedweller: A Novel

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• ISBN13: 9780452279698
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Description

A lush, epic novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Bastard Out of Carolina.

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.

"Luminous. Unabashedly emotional. Pays close attention to the way women get by, the way they come to forgive one another, the way they choose who they will be. Might have been written by George Elliot, had she ever passed through the shockwaves of rock-n-roll." --The New York Times Book Review

"Rich and involving...Its generous vision of the world stays with you." -Newsweek

"With the yarn-spinning rhythm of old Southern legends. An epic novel full of sweet-dream fever." --Boston Globe

"Spectacular. Sensual. Allison has a spare gospel-tinged lyricism that few can match." --New York Newsday

"Hooks the reader on the first page." -Time

"Its narrative takes you over without your realizing it...the heartfelt urgency of what happens to whom carries you along." --Boston Globe

"A startling and powerful novel about a woman's painful salvation...well worth the time and the tears." --New York Post

"Brilliant. Funny, heartbreaking." --Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Introduces a new cast of indomitable women. Powerful. Sassy. Knowing. An extraordinary book." --Baltimore Sun

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"Death changes everything." So begins Dorothy Allison's sprawling, ambitious, and deeply satisfying second novel, Cavedweller. For Delia Byrd, Randall Pritchard's death in a motorcycle accident launches a journey of several thousand miles and almost two decades, a rebirth of sorts that's also a return to her roots. Years before, the handsome but untrustworthy rock star Randall helped Delia flee an abusive husband; Delia escapes physical danger but leaves her two small children behind. In California, her abandoned daughters haunt her dreams and preoccupy her waking hours, even as she sings in Randall's band and gives birth to another daughter, Cissy. But when Randall is killed in a motorcycle accident, Delia packs rebellious Cissy into a broken-down Datsun, bound for Cayro, Georgia, and the one thing that suddenly matters more than anything else: her abandoned children and the chance to be a mother to them once again.

Cayro's poverty is emotional as well as material; the town is a hard place, full of hard people. To them, Delia will always be "that bitch" who abandoned her babies, "that hippie" living a life of sin. Nonetheless, Delia forges a cruel bargain with her former husband: in exchange for Delia's agreeing to care for him as he dies, he gives her a chance to reclaim her daughters. Like Bastard out of Carolina, Allison's acclaimed debut novel, Cavedweller is a chronicle of rage, strength, and survival. Here, however, Allison is equally concerned with the redemptive power of love and forgiveness, and a novel that began with death ends on an unexpectedly sanguine note: "'Yes, it's time for some new songs.'" There are no victims in Dorothy Allison's work; Delia triumphs through sheer force of will, bringing her family together despite the contempt of almost everyone around her.

The novel has its flaws--including occasionally flat-footed prose--but it is in the end compulsively readable, and it's populated by some of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: tough, prickly, flawed, and deeply human, Delia and Cissy are literary creations of the first rank. In describing the complicated emotions that bind and divide them, Allison demonstrates a profoundly unsentimental understanding of the way the human heart works. Cavedweller is the work of a mature artist, her best fiction to date.

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Customer Reviews

Pretty Good
I found this book to be the story of a dysfunctional family of strong women who manage to function in spite of themselves. I was struck by the thought that these women, if seen sitting in the coffee shop or the beauty shop, would look like an ordinary group of redneck women with probably not much of interest going on in their lives. Wrong! The book is in need of some editing to cut down on a huge bunch of words adding nothing to the story, but otherwise is well-written.

2010-04-17 | book lover (Danville, Virginia United States) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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Powerful and emotionally riveting
"Cavedweller" is among a number of contemporary novels that effectively incorporate rock music as a major theme. It makes sense to do it, given the importance that rock music has in contemporary life. But few novels do it as subtlely as Cavedweller. The interesting thing is that rock is not the primary force in the book -- at least on the surface -- but it has been the salvation for Delia, the main character. And the book would lack an underlying logic without it.

Delia escaped from a bad marriage to an abusive husband when she jumped aboard a traveling band's bus, thus abandoning her young children in her hometown of Cayro, Georgia. Delia became the lead singer in the band, Mud Dog, and had a child by its lead singer, Randall. Fronting Mud Dog was the thing that Delia did best in her life. Even though the novel begins with her having put Mud Dog and the rock-n-roll life behind her, it clearly gave her a confidence and strength that helped to see her through the challenges she faced in rebuilding her life. It also gave her an aura of fame that awed and intimidated the people of Cayro when Delia returns to the town more than a decade later, with her third daughter (child of the Mud Dog's lead singer) in tow.

Delia's decade-plus in California was eventful: Mud Dog had its heyday and then broke apart; she left Randall; and then he died in a motorcycle accident. That accident was the spur for a recently sober Delia to take her young daughter Cissy back to Cayro and to try to make amends. Delia receives a frosty reception from a town of citizens who mostly think of her as a bad wife and mother, and who have sympathy for her husband Clint (who never granted a divorce), who's dying of cancer. Gradually, Delia rebuilds her life through a series of penances -- to Clint, to the daughters she abandoned, and so on.

The book is powerful because Delia maintains her strength and dignity, despite her many weaknesses and mistakes. She doesn't give in. Everything she agrees to do, she does on her own terms, such as caring for the dying Clint and raising her three daughters. She accepts help when she really needs it, but she is also not going to apologize for things that were not mistakes. And she's not going to put on a good public face (i.e., pretending to be religious) unless it's true. In the end, her success is far from complete, but it's a real success, not a fake.

Among the memorable things about this book are Delia's two best friends: Rosemary, a black woman with whom Delia co-wrote songs in Los Angeles; and M.T., her best friend in Cayro, who has carved out a life as the town's most alluring woman. Each demonstrate versions of what I call the "strong woman," a woman who impresses and intimidates everyone around them.

Delia's daughters are a bit cliched. Amanda is a church fanatic who marriages a pastor (and then starts to experiment with sin); Dede is a beautiful but crazy-dangerous blonde who falls for the boy next door; and Cissy is an uptight tomboy who will need to escape town to reach her potential.

Finally, the atmosphere in the book is often well-sketched, from Delia's hurtle across the country back to Cayro, to the church encounters early in the book, to caving expeditions by Cissy, to the warm and safety of Delia's hair salon. It's a rich portrayal of a small town, showing that there's actually far more going on than meets the eye.

"Cavedweller" is my first exposure to Dorothy Allison, and, based on the reviews I've seen online, it's not her best work. But if this is second in line, I'm really looking forward to reading more that she's produced.

2009-05-21 (USA) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 4

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A Mother Runs Off with a Rock Star and Leaves Her Children Behind
This book is poorly conceived. The plot is fragmented, the writing awkward, and the characterization is superficial and contrived. Overall, it was a big disappointment.

The novel is about a woman who leaves an abusive husband and her two daughters to run off with a rock star. The rock star dies and she returns to the small Georgia town she left in order to reconcile with her children.

I recommend reading Bastard out of Carolina: (Plume Essential Edition) by Allison instead of this. 'Bastard Out of Carolina' is a fine book that is beautifully written.

2009-04-26 | Fairbanks Reader (Fairbanks, Alaska) | Helpful Votes: 0 | Rating: 2

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Not impressed.
I am a first time reader of Dorothy Allison, and I was not at all impressed with this novel. I sort of struggled through it, forced myself to finish it.

The first thing I noticed was all the characters' personalities kind of melted together, the dialogue did not provide them with individual voices, poor character development. The girls as children spoke just the same as the adults - clearly not age appropriate language.
New characters continually appeared, which made me stumble. And so many important scenes of real ACTION were left out and just referred to! Just when I thought we were getting to the good stuff.

And lastly, the novel could be dirtier. 400+ pages and only allusions to sex? Please.

2008-02-06 | karismah (Merriam, KS 66204) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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blah
Bought this on a clearance rack and can now see why it hadn't sold. The characters were unexciting, and the story dragged on and on. I read 4 books while having this one unfinished on my night stand. I've never read any of Allison's other novels, but after reading this one, I don't think I'll jump on the chance. Dede was the most interesting character, and even she couldn't keep me involved.

2006-05-03 (Mapleton, ND) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 1

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Skin: Talking About Sex, Class And Literature

Description

A fantastic collection of essays, autobiographical narratives, and performance pieces, including updated versions of earlier groundbreaking material with provocative new work by the lifelong feminist activist, controversial sex radical, and Southern expatriate writer with an attitude who brought us Bastard Out of Carolina, Trash, and The Women Who Hate Me. Funny, passionate, and compelling prose on what it means to be queer and happy about it in a world that is still arguing about what it means to be queer.

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Customer Reviews

Thought provoking sociological examination
I read skin for a sociology class focusing on women's issues and this one is quality.

Allison really makes you think about how race, sex, and class relate and are interwoven together. If you're looking for a book to help you on your journey toward empowerment take a look.

2008-11-09 | www.jonathancoffman.com (Washington DC, USA) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 3

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Powerful and not to be missed

Noted as "extraordinary" by the author Tee A. Corinne in her book `Courting Pleasure' and as `...exquisite, memorable erotic work...".

This was the most intense reading I have done in a long time. This should be recommended reading in all colleges and universities.

Tremendous titles from the author are - Bastard Out of Carolina, Trash, and The Women Who Hate Me. More information can be found at the author's web page dorothyallison dot net

From the back of the book - A compelling collection of essays, autobiographical narratives, and performance pieces combines updated versions of earlier groundbreaking material with provocative new work. The author probes her experience of being a lifelong feminist activist, controversial sex radical, and a Southern expatriate writer with an attitude.. With humor, passion and enormous conviction, she addresses what it means to be queer and happy about it in a world that is still arguing about what it means to be queer.

2006-10-22 | Bronwyn (Tampa, Florida) | Helpful Votes: 1 | Rating: 5

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Fabulous!
"Skin" is a book of essays by the amazingly talented writer and activist, Dorothy Allison. I remember reading [...] Out of Carolina many years ago and thinking I might not get through it because of its gruesome and hideous portrayal of a poverty-stricken, incestuous family living in the South. Turns out that book was Allison's fictionalized account of her childhood. Skin, however, is a finely crafted series of essays with titles ranging from "Gun Crazy" to "The Theory and Practice of the Strap-on Dildo" to "Believing in Literature". She likes to talk about everything people aren't supposed to talk about, including masturbating to science fiction novels, the pain of catching a venereal disease from her stepfather when she was a child (a disease that went untreated, rendering her sterile), the thrill of S & M, butch/femme strap-on sex, and much more just as juicy. Allison's style is fearlessly intimate and unashamed. Her long struggle to escape poverty and find a voice is evident in every page, and in every page her voice is beautiful, loud, and resiliant.

2006-04-22 (Austin, TX) | Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 5

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Essays on class, racism, sexuality, and literature
The extraordinary Dorothy Allison can write fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and essays. Skin is her contribution to the essay genre, a collection of two dozen bits of astute rambling across a crazy quilt of subjects stitched together by the fierce honesty her readers have come to expect from all of her writing. Coming from a poor white trash family in South Carolina, she traveled beyond her origins thanks to a rampant intelligence that nothing could dull. A feminist before the word was invented, Allison is also a proud card-carrying lesbian, a writer, mentor, teacher, lecturer, and a woman who is always generous to other writers. Skin deals more explicitly and in greater depth with erotica and sexuality than her other works, so readers would do well to be forewarned. But if you're a Dorothy Allison fan, this is NOT a book to be missed.

2003-08-18 | author and reader (Oakland, CA) | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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A book about SEX!
An opportunity to get thinking about a few "difficult" subjects, while enjoying a few refreshing lines of thought as well as a no-nonense yet witty style.Being a woman, gay or poor not a requisite, although it might help. If you're neither of the three, buy the book anyway, you might learn something (I did).

2000-05-19 | Helpful Votes: 6 | Rating: 5

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Bastard Out of Carolina (Paperback)

Description

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