Dorothy Allison is now perhaps best known for her book Bastard Out of Carolina which was made recently into a movie by Showtime. (By the way, I think the movie stays pretty true to the book, except they play down the part of Aunt Raylene and her (possible) lesbianism - typical.) Bastard is a powerful and moving book and, while the movie stays reasonably close to the book's plot, It can't come anywhere the depth that the book has. Allison is also an excellent essayist and short story writer.
Here's a sample from Trash:
Language, then, and tone, and cadence. Make me mad, and I'll curse you to the seventh generation in my mama's voice. But you have to work to get me mad. I measure my anger against my mama's rages and her insistence that most people aren't even worth your time. 'We are another people. Our like isn't seen on earth that often,' my mama told me, and I knew what she meant. I know the value of the hard asses of this world.
From Trash, published by Firebrand books, 1988.
Here's one from Bastard Out of Carolina:
I rolled over and pushed my face underwater. 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 a 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 would get so angry at Daddy Glen I would grind my teeth. I would drean of cutting his heart out, his evil raging pit-black heart. In the dream it felt good to hate him.
Quoted from Bastard Out of Carolina, Plume Books, 1993
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