Trash: Stories Summary
Dorothy Allison

Trash: Stories Overview

Dorothy Allison's Trash is a collection of stories all describing the traumatic, but ultimately hopeful lives of mostly unnamed narrators who reminisce about their childhoods, their lovers, their families, and their appetites. Allison illuminates the lives of the underrepresented trash of American society by focusing on abuse in family, lesbian love and lifestyles, and the exoticizing of the American South by the rest of the country. By exploring themes of poverty, longing, and connection, Allison transforms this trash not only into figures deserving empathy, but also into people with goals, lust, fears, and memories.