Introduction & Overview of Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison

Bastard Out of Carolina Introduction

Allison recounts the story of Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright, the illegitimate daughter of a fifteen-year-old, unmarried, uneducated waitress. Bone's mother, a child herself, desperately seeks love and familial stability, which she has never experienced in her own large, unorthodox brood of kin. Anney's need for love is so strong that she turns a blind eye to the abuse—physical, emotional, and sexual—that her second husband, Daddy Glen, heaps upon her young daughter. Before even reaching the age of thirteen, Bone has experienced a life's supply of disappointment, bitterness, self-hatred, and even hatred for her mother. If Bastard Out of Carolina sharply affects many readers because of the swell of truth behind the characters and their actions, that is partially Allison's intention. For Allison once explained what storytelling meant to her in an interview she gave to Alexis Jetter of The New York Times Magazine: "I believe that storytelling can be a...
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