”Oh, but that’s why I got to cut his throat,” she said plainly. “If I didn’t love the son of a bitch, I’d let him live forever.” This statement written by Dorothy Allison in Bastard Out of Carolina and spoken by Alma is often quoted in reviews. Words in the Boatwright family are not always logical and rarely without passion. By the time you read this book you will have had enough experience with the large dysfunctional family to know that. I remembered Aunt Alma’s direct look this afternoon when she’d talked about loving Wade, about wanting to kill him. I didn’t understand that kind of love. I didn’t understand anything. A twelve year old shouldn’t have to understand that, let alone feel it herself. She would have to be an excellent example of growing up too young, a Boatwright family specialty.Before I started reading Bastard Out of Carolina, I found the 1996 movie streaming online and watched it. (If you go to http://search.ovguide.com/?ci=424&... , you will find where you can watch the movie for free.) Immediately after I watched the movie, I was not sure I wanted to read the book! The movie had some horrific, violent scenes and I thought the book might go into these scenes in more detail. I was quivering from the movie so I took a break. I wondered how the actors in the movie, especially the young ones, managed to maintain their mental health portraying events that I had trouble even watching. As I often find for myself, the images on the screen were more intense than the words in the book. In a book I am sometimes shielded from the content by my admiration of the writing, of the choice of words. The film is more vivid and in my face, pummeling me.I was a child protective services (CPS) worker in the mid 1970s dealing with child abuse and neglect. These societal concerns were receiving increased public attention and academic study at that time and CPS was just coming to term and being born. The Battered Child Syndrome certainly applies to Bone, the girl child we watch grow up in an abusive home in Bastard Out of Carolina. This book is a lesson in traditional old time, country living. The story is told by the girl, Bone. They did what they could. The sisters sent Mama a wedding present, a love knot Marvella had made using some of her own hair, after Maybelle had cut little notches in their rabbits’ ears under a new moon, adding the blood to the knot. She set the rabbits loose, and then the two of them tore up half a dozen rows of their beans and buried honeycomb in a piece of lace tablecloth where the beans had flourished. The note with the love knot told Mama that she should keep it under the mattress of the new bed that Glen had bought, but Mama sniffed the blood and dried hair, and shook her head over the thing. She couldn’t quite bring herself to throw it away, but she put it in one of her flower pots out in the utility room where Glen wouldn’t find it stinking up their house. The Boatwright family is hard living, hard drinking, fighting; Bone is proud to be a part of it: We’re smart, I thought. We’re smarter than you think we are. I felt mean and powerful and proud of all of us, all the Boatwrights who had ever gone to jail, fought back when they hadn’t a chance, and still held on to their pride. Bone suffers abuse that is graphically portrayed: emotional, physical, sexual: “Nobody wants me to have nothing nice,” he’d complain, and then get in one of his dangerously quiet moods and refuse to talk to anyone. He brooded so much that Reese and I patrolled the yard, picking up windblown trash and do turds – anything that would make him mad. Every new house made him happy for a little while, and we tried to extend that period of relative calm as much as possible, keeping everything clean and neat.. . .His left hand reached for me, caught my shoulder, pulled me over his left leg. He flipped my skirt up over my head and jammed it into that hand. I heard the sound of the belt swinging up, a song in the air, a high-pitched terrible sound. It hit me and I screamed. Daddy Glen swung his belt again. I screamed at its passage through the air, screamed before it hit me,. I screamed for Mama. He was screaming with me, his great hoarse shouts as loud as my high thin squeals, and behind us outside the locked door, Reese was screaming too, and then Mama. All of us were screaming, and no one could help.. . .He never said, “Don’t tell your Mama.” He never had to say it. I did not know how to tell anyone what I felt, what scared me and shamed me and still made me stand, unmoving and desperate, while he rubbed against me and ground his face into my neck. I could not tell Mama. I would not have known how to explain why I stood there and let him touch me. It wasn’t sex, not like a man and a woman pushing their naked bodies into each other, but then, it was something like sex, something powerful and frightening that he wanted badly and I did not understand at all. Worse, when Daddy Glen held me that way, it was the only time his hands were gentle, and when he let me go, I would rock on uncertain feet. . . .Two weeks later we were back home with Daddy Glen. Nothing had changed. Everything had changed. Daddy Glen had said he was sorry, begged, wept, and swore never to hurt me again. I had stood silent, stubborn, and numb. This is the story of abuse everywhere. But not too many people can write about it like Dorothy Allison has. And you ask what was happening to Bone’s younger sister, Reese? Very often there is a special child who is the object of all of the abuse while others are untouched. Bone was that special child in her family. The emotional damage done to Reese is undoubtedly severe even though she was spared the physical and sexual abuse. Child abuse has a strong blame-the-victim component. Daddy Glen would beat Bone and her mother asked, “What did you do to make him do that?”Allison explains her writing about abuse:The need to make my world believable to people who have never experienced it is part of why I write fiction. I know that some things must be felt to be understood, that despair, for example, can never be adequately analyzed; it must be lived. But if I can write a story that so draws the reader in that she imagines herself like my characters, feels their sense of fear and uncertainty, their hopes and terrors, then I have come closer to knowing myself as real, important as the very people I have always watched with awe.. . .By the time I taught myself the basics of storytelling on the page, I knew there was only one story that would haunt me until I understood how to tell it—the complicated, painful story of how my mama had, and had not, saved me as a girl. Writing Bastard Out of Carolina became, ultimately, the way to claim my family's pride and tragedy, and the embattled sexuality I had fashioned on a base of violence and abuse.Source: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defco...Reading the online essay from which those paragraphs are taken, will tell you much about Dorothy Allison and her writing. The phrase ‘semi-autobiographical’ will become clear to the reader.It hurt to read parts of this book. Bone’s reaction to being abused is so typical and so distressing. “It was my fault, all my fault. I had ruined everything.” But there were also some good parts. It made me remember being a child and playing with a gang of kids in my neighborhood. It reminded me of the strength within a family, even within a troubled family.The Boatwright clan of Greenville County, South Carolina has to be your stereotype of an extended family with boatloads of hate and more boatloads of love. To call them a dysfunctional family is too neat and tidy a summary. Their interactions with anyone outside the family are limited, at least according to Bastard Out of Carolina. Lots of parents and grandparents and sisters and brothers and in-laws and nieces and nephews and cousins populate this book. The outsiders are medical people we meet at the hospital when the Boatwrights hurt each other enough, a nearby family with an albino daughter who vie for an oddity award, the law for when a Boatwright gets involved in something illegal (common but still the family tries to deal with its own infractions), the people in the diner where Mama often works. There is a family album with the newspaper articles about the family – mostly things that you might not think people would be proud of. The newspaper photo of the pick-up truck that a drunk Earle drove through a barber shop window is a good example.There are still real Boatwrights in a real Greenville County, SC. The book will tell you, of course, that this is a book for fiction and any resemblance is coincidental! I don’t know how exactly how that works when a book is acknowledged to be semi-autobiographical.(view spoiler)[ One of the most difficult questions left unresolved is Bone’s relationship with her mother who chose abuser Daddy Glen over abused daughter Bone. That choice is made shortly after the mother observes her husband raping and beating her twelve year old daughter on the living room floor of a sister’s house. This is the sister who loved her husband so much that she wanted to cut his throat with a razor. The implication is that Bone forgives her mother although the mother and step-father move away from the area and Raylene, the gay aunt, says her mother will never forgive herself. Raylene knows this from her personal experience of having a lesbian partner choose her baby over Raylene. This is divulged at the conclusion of the book. Nothing should be a surprise since Raylene is, above all, a Boatwright. If Bone is Dorothy Allison, the psychiatric bills must be immense. But she did become a pretty good writer – at what cost, I ask. The book is dedicated to Ms. Allison’s mother, so I guess there must have been some reconciliation at least mentally. (hide spoiler)]
This book is beautifully written, but I did not enjoy it. It is a grim story of poverty, child abuse and rape. The prose may be lovely but the drama is harrowing."Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies."Bastard Out of Carolina is the story of Ruth Anne Boatwright, but everyone calls her Bone. She was born out of wedlock and doesn't know who her daddy is. Her mama tried several times to get the word "illegitimate" removed from Bone's birth certificate, but the courthouse clerk just smirked at her."Mama hated to be called trash, hated the memory of every day she'd ever spent bent over other people's peanuts and strawberry plants while they stood tall and looked at her like she was a rock on the ground. The stamp on that birth certificate burned her like the stamp she knew they'd tried to put on her. No good, lazy, shiftless. She'd work her hands to claws, her back to a shovel shape, her mouth to a bent and awkward smile — anything to deny what Greenville County wanted to name her."Her mama eventually married a man named Glen, and that is when Bone's real troubles began. Glen couldn't keep a job or pay the bills, so the family often went hungry and had to move a lot. Glen also had a fierce temper and started molesting and beating Bone, and she didn't know what to do. Her mama seemed to know Glen disliked Bone, but she said she loved him so much that she wouldn't leave him. After several years of abuse, Bone's aunt saw the bruises on her, and she was finally taken away.Poor Bone. She blamed herself for making Glen angry, and she hated that her mama couldn't protect her. At times she would get so mad that she wanted to fight him, and other times she just wanted to disappear. Those passages were some of the most heartbreaking in the book."I was no Cherokee. I was no warrior. I was nobody special. I was just a girl, scared and angry. When I saw myself in Daddy Glen's eyes, I wanted to die. No, I wanted to be already dead, cold and gone. Everything felt hopeless. He looked at me and I was ashamed of myself. It was like sliding down an endless hole, seeing myself at the bottom, dirty, ragged, poor, stupid. But at the bottom, at the darkest point, my anger would come and I would know that he had no idea who I was, that he never saw me as the girl who worked hard for Aunt Raylene, who got good grades no matter how often I changed schools, who ran errands for Mama and took good care of Reese. I was not dirty, not stupid, and if I was poor, whose fault was that?"I had previously read Dorothy Allison's memoir Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, so I knew that this novel was semi-autobiographical. From the author's afterword:"Writing Bastard, I had imagined that girl — or rather some girl of thirteen or so who hated herself and her life. I had imagined that, reading Bone's story, a girl like her would see what I intended — that being made the object of someone else's contempt and rage did not make you contemptible. I was arguing against the voice that had told me I was a monster — at five, nine, and fifteen. I was arguing for the innocence and worth of that child — I who had never believed in my own innocence." "The mythology of rape and child abuse had done me so much damage. People from families like mine — southern working poor with high rates of illegitimacy and all too many relatives who have spent time in jail — we are the people who are seen as the class who does not care for their children, for whom rape and abuse and violence are the norm. That such assumptions are false, that the rich are just as likely to abuse their children as the poor, and that southerners do not have a monopoly on either violence or illegitimacy are realities that are difficult to get people to recognize. The myths are so strong they subvert sociological data and personal accounts."Truthfully, the afterword was my favorite part of the book. Besides sharing her motivations for writing the novel, Allison also discussed how some schools around the country have censored and banned the book, and how she grieved whenever she heard such news. If you want to read Bastard Out of Carolina, try and find a copy that has the afterword (mine was the 20th anniversary edition). That said, I don't know if I can recommend this novel because it was so grim. I am glad that some readers have found comfort in seeing issues of abuse brought to light, but it will be awhile before I can shake those awful images. "I do not want to be the person who acts always out of fear or denial or old shame and older assumptions. I want to be my best self — the one who set out to tell a story that might make a difference in the lives of people who read it. Unafraid, stubborn, resilient, and capable of enormous compassion — someone like Bone."
What do You think about Bastard Out Of Carolina (2005)?
I'm so glad you reminded me of this novel, Lela. It was such a fantastic read. As you say, realistic, painful. Some of the situations were hard to read, but Bone was a great narrator and never lost her spirit. Really loved this book.
—Lela
Set in Greenville, Carolina, sometime in the late '50s, this colorful, vibrant, heart-crushing narrative is a must-read.It's so passe nowadays to handle themes like "sexual abuse", family violence, mother-daughter betrayal unless you can shine new light on the subjects -- overdone and overfamiliar, it has now become a big insensitive cliche or a melodramatic spin-sob story. But in Ms. Allison's hands, even reading it today in the background of all that's overdone and overfamiliar, this story eng
—Elaine
”He pinned me between his hip and the sink, lifting me slightly and bending me over. I reached out and caught hold of the porcelain, trying not to grab at him, not to touch him. No. No. No. He was raging, spitting, the blows hitting the wall as often as they hit me. Beyond the door, Mama was screaming. Daddy Glen was grunting. I hate him. I hated him. The belt went up and came down. Fire along my thighs. Pain. I would not scream. I would not, would not, would not scream.” Bone played by Jena Malone in the movie adaptation.There was confusion when Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright was born. Her Mama, a fifteen year old girl without a husband, was recovering from a car wreck and from giving birth when the people with the paperwork came around. Bone’s Aunts tried to answer the questions, but because they could not remember exactly the name of the fellow who was the sperm donor the paperwork went through as UNKNOWN FATHER and Bone’s birth certificate is stamped in big red letters at the bottom. ILLEGITIMATE. Her mother tries for years to get that red stain removed from the birth certificate, but the people at the courthouse take too much malicious, petty joy out of continuing to issue each new birth certificate with the same damning stamp.The Boatwright clan is a force of nature. The men are hard working, hard hitting, binge drinking, thieving, skirt chasing,and fast driving dervishes of fire and passion who when not fighting each other are fighting the world.They are intensely loyal, to a fault, to their friends and family. The Boatwright women name their daughters after their sisters. They name their sons after their brothers. They demand respect and get it. When Aunt Alma gets into a conflict with her husband she makes if very clear how she sees things. ”Oh, but that’s why I got to cut his throat,” she said plainly. “If I didn’t love the son of a bitch, I’d let him live forever.”Family get togethers are intensely emotional and always on the verge of song or violence. Uncle Earle is Bone’s favorite uncle. He is popular with the whole family brimming with charisma. He is the one guy everybody wants to see when they are troubled. Uncle Earle played by Michael Rooker in the movie adaptation. ”Uncle Earle was my favorite of all my uncles. He was known as Black Earle for three counties around. Mama said he was called Black Earle for that black black hair that fell over his eyes in a great soft curl, but Aunt Raylene said it was for his black black heart. He was a good-looking man, soft-spoken and hardworking. He told Mama that all the girls loved him because he looked like Elvis Presley, only skinny and with muscles. In a way he did, but his face was etched with lines and sunburned a deep red-brown. The truth was he had none of the Elvis Presley’s baby-faced innocence; he had a devilish look and a body Aunt Alma swore was made for sex. He was a big man, long and lanky, with wide hands marked with scars. ‘Earle looks like trouble coming in on greased skids.’”Now Bone’s Mama is married to one young man just long enough to get pregnant with Bone’s sister Reese. He died under unusual circumstances clearing the way for Glen Waddell. Glen comes from a good family, a family that owns their houses and goes into professions like lawyering and doctoring. Now Bone’s mother Anney is a beauty, fine boned and graceful, but compared to the type of women that a Waddell is expected to marry she is trash. Glen has never lived up to his father’s expectations and marrying Anney just confirms for their family that he is never going to amount to anything. He gets in fights. He intensely loves Anney; and yet ,can’t hardly stand to be in the same room with Ruth Anne without finding some “bone of contention”. ”I looked at his hands. No he never meant to hurt me, not really, I told myself, but more and more those hands seemed to move before he could think. His hands were big, impersonal, and fast. I could not avoid them. Reese and I made jokes about them when he wasn’t around--gorilla hands, monkey paws, paddlefish, beaver tails. My dreams were full of long fingers, hands that reached around doorframes and crept over the edge of the mattress, fear in me like a river, like the ice-dark blue of his eyes.”Daddy Glen, as he insists on being called, swears he loves Bone, but when he is not beating her he is pulling her against him; rubbing her up and down his body; his hands inside her clothes. His mind is twisted with hate and unnatural desire a lethal combination that kills love. Even though she can’t carry a tune, Bone wants to be a gospel singer. She loves the music, but what she really loves about religion is Revelations. It stokes the rage in her heart and gives her hope that everyone will get what’s coming to them. ”I sang along with the music and prayed for all I was worth. Jesus’ blood and country music, there had to be something else, something more to hope for. I bit my lip and went back to reading the Book of Revelation, taking comfort in the hope of the apocalypse, God’s retribution on the wicked. I liked Revelations, loved the Whore of Babylon and the promised rivers of blood and fire. It struck me like gospel music, it promised vindication.”Bone loves her Mama so completely that she made me want to love her too. I just couldn’t forgive her. Sometimes when we are faced with something so horrible our brain chooses not to process that information. Anney knew, but didn’t want to know. Anney not only let Bone down, she let us all down. I know we can’t help who we fall in love with, but you have to love your children more. In the beginning, children are the best of us ,and how we protect them and nurture them will determine whether they continue to represent us to the world as better versions of ourselves or shattered adaptations of the worst of us. Dorothy AllisonThe plot is predictable, no deviations from a script that has been played before. Despite that I bumped it to four stars for the lovely descriptions of the Boatwright family. I felt that Allison has that Southern gift for language that soars especially well when she is describing people. The Boatwright’s are a family I’d be proud to be a part of and a family I’d work like crazy to get far, far away from.
—Jeffrey Keeten
