Bastard Out of Carolina

By: Dorothy Allison

Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans

Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

A modern literary classic, now available in a 20th anniversary edition with a new afterword by the author.

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 William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor, and 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.

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.

©1992 Dorothy Allison (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

The Triumph of an Original Voice

Any additional comments?

You don’t have to read all of this book to get what is probably its best part. You certainly should read it all – don’t get me wrong – but the essence of it comes to us in the first paragraphs when we hear Bone talk for the first time.

This is the story of a young girl growing into her full self in the face of a great deal of confusion (from her wild and colorful family) and more than her share of hostility (a childish, frightening and terribly abusive step-father). If the question underlying it is always, “What will she learn?” the answer comes to us in the first and really all the following lines: she will grow into her voice, a humorous, clever, musical and thoroughly original voice.

And, when you hear that voice in the first few lines of the book, you know the person speaking them is OK. You know, in other words, that our protagonist emerges from her tough times as a distinct and memorable self. It’s all there in the opening where she tells the story of her birth and her “accidentally” being recorded as a bastard at the county office. Think of a bud at the end of a branch; all the season’s growth is in it in miniature. If you pull it apart carefully enough, you can see everything that will follow.

So, without dismissing Bone’s sustained experiences – as she grapples with moving all the time, with discovering her sexuality, with her attraction to religion and gospel music and, above all, with negotiating her step-father’s growing abuse – this novel is the story of how a girl becomes a woman, how she learns enough to tell her own story.

The violence, naïve sexuality, and confusion about what it means to love someone can be harrowing. Toward the end – which you really must read to understand the depths from which Bone recovers – it gets harder and harder to endure. Bone calls out for someone to help her and, within the novel, she lacks the language to make herself heard. Seeing that, experiencing her when she has no voice, makes that “end” – the original and strong character who emerges as our narrator at the beginning – even more compelling.

Listen to the music of her every sentence. Yes, this book matters for what happens, but it’s memorable for how it happens, for the wonderful human voice at the heart of it.

Faint of heart?

I know some people were turned off by the child molestation in this book, but the fact is that it happens so often to kids, maybe if we could read the signs of the child and the adults around them, more of it could be prevented. For these reasons, I found the story interesting, believable, and sadly informative. I felt such empathy for the protagonist, for almost more than the physical abuse, the mental abuse she endured. And FYI, the mom sucks..

Great book.

Simply put: An unthinkable story that must be told. Done with empathy and shared pain.

Interesting narrative

This was a wonderfully portrayed book and gave me insight into aspects of life I had never thought existed. The family dynamics alone are worthy of narrative praise. I could feel this story in my bones.

Hard

It was hard to get through the first 3or4 chapters... it was a lot of nonsense that didn't matter to the book. After that it gets super deep and all comes together. I'm glad I stuck with it.

Powerful but dark

Excellent book and well performed. it was very graphic and very dark, though. I need to read a comedy next!

Courageous and Triumphant

This book took me to a place that I did not want to go. A place that I wanted never to return to. Bone has given me the courage to speak about that place without feeling shame. Dorothy Allison has brought beauty from ashes through a story where the character suffers injustice yet does not allow her spirit to be broken by those who view her and her kind as trash. This is a place that I know too well where culture and classism blind others to view the humanity in others. I not only view this as the rape of child, but the rape of an entire people soiled by the dominant culture through negative stereotypes, negligence, and violence.

Sad story

It's hard for me to write a review of a story like this. I was upset at the ending. After I heard the author's comments at the end the reason for the ending made sense.

❤️

Dorothy Allison is so, so good at writing characters you can't help but love. And, also, breaking your heart.

What a book!

For anyone who loves the literature of the South, Allen’s work is heartbreaking and vivid