Dorothy Allison - Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

From Publishers Weekly Allisons much-praised novel Bastard Out of Carolina was inspired by her childhood in Greenville, S.C., but in this memoir, adapted from a performance piece, she cuts even closer to the bone. We dont have a family Bible? the authors fourth-grade self asks her aunt. Child, some days we dont even have a family, comes the response. If Allison suffered horrors, notably rape by her stepfather when she was five, she has transmuted pain into stories, gaining control with maturity. Indeed, her title prefaces several hard-won aphorisms she uses to counterpoint her memories: No one is as hard as my uncles had to pretend to be. Her mother was a beauty, as was her sister, but Dorothy, smart and plain, felt a legacy of ugliness, one she shook off slowly as her feminism and her heart led her to lesbian relationships, often painful, finally rewarding. She is now, in her 40s, a new mother, and her stories?and life?are a triumph of love over cruelty. Read it aloud and savor the rhythms. Photos not seen by PW. Author tour. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Allison (Bastard Out of Carolina, LJ 3/1/92) is a poet, essayist, and novelist, but in all these she is a storyteller. For her, stories are not simply creations but the very things that create us. Resounding with a familiarity of the intimate turned universal, this brief memoir recounts the episodes and people of Allisons life who created her and her own re-creation of herself. Often painful and mean, the stories are never bitter or despairing because of Allisons ability to move beyond, if not transform, the meaningless cruelty of life. Written as a performance piece, the cadence of the prose reverberates in the head and begs to be read out loud: Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me. With this retelling, Allison remakes that coat in her own image and leaves readers waiting for more stories. Highly recommended. [A BOMC and Quality Paperback selection.]?Eric Bryant, Library Journal. *-?Eric Bryant, Library Journal* Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.