by Dorothy Allison

isbn: 0525934251
subject: Fiction and Literature
finished: 12/8/1997

This book is about Bone, a girl growing up in South Carolina during the 1950s. It centers around her relationships with her troubled but loving mother, her abusive stepfather, and her proud but dirt-poor extended family. The story is filled with the sounds, smells, and textures of growing up; Allison does a wonderful job of capturing the world from a child's point of view. This makes Bone's hatred and fear of her stepfather and her anger at being looked down upon by townspeople very vivid and believable. As in Music for Mechanics and The Mists of Avalon, the male characters in Bastard out of Carolina are one-dimensional and spend a lot of time fighting or otherwise getting into trouble. Recommended.