Bastard Out of Carolina By Allison Dorothy

A modern literary classic now available in a twentieth anniversary keepsake 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 Allison spikes her critically acclaimed first novel a National Book Award nominee with pungent characters and saturates it with a sense of its setting Publishers Weekly The Classic work of fiction that dramatically illuminates the lives described in current nonfiction bestsellers like J D Vance s Hillbilly Elegy and Nancy Isenberg s White Trash The modern literary classic that has been compared to To Kill a Mockingbird and Catcher in the Rye As close to flawless as any reader could ask for The New York Times Book Review The publication of Dorothy Allison s B