Dorothy Allison's collection of short stories draws on her own background growing up poor in the American South. The narrators are working-class girls and women, often queer, living with poverty, family violence and shame, and finding sex, language and self-respect where they can. Her prose is direct, unsparing and clear about class as well as sexuality.
Read it if you like honest, short, emotional fiction about families who are not middle class, and if you want to discover a writer who later became known for her novel Bastard Out of Carolina. It is a short, hard-hitting book rather than a comfortable one.
Inward-looking and thought-provoking; a moderate read.
Best for readers like The Empathetic Explorer. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1988
- Language
- EN
