SPOILERS INCLUDED

Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina attempts to be hard-hitting and emotional but really doesn’t manage it nearly as well as she apparently hoped.

To begin, the plot is highly predictable; I knew it from simply reading the blurb on the back of my edition. This in itself would not be a problem except that the unhappy resolution—the child raped by her father-figure is abandoned by her mother and the rapist escapes all justice—obviously was meant to be shocking.

Indeed, the whole problem of the book stems from the disconnect of the author’s expectations and the actual delivery. The only value it has was providing a clear view into the thought processes of an abused person and how the effects of abuse change that person for the worse. However, the narrative jumps back and forth through the body of the text between an omnipotent Bone who reflects on her childhood memories and inside the mind of the child. Again, while this technique in itself is not at fault, Allison’s use of it is weak and undermines basic assumptions Bone (and therefore the reader) makes throughout. For instance, the characterization of Daddy Glen seems rather one-dimensional, which is perhaps appropriate since Bone is the abused and the abuser would probably be something of an enigma to her. Yet in the very beginning there seems to be an omnipotent narrator who writes off Glen’s interest in Bone’s mother Ruth as a way to get back at his family; the subject is never visited again except to show Glen’s reaction to his family. Such a choice thus makes it seem as though all of Glen’s actions are reactions to his family. Yet we are still unclear as to why he singles Bone out for abuse. Again, this would make more sense if the former detail of his motivation to love Ruth was not mentioned, for Bone would certainly not know that detail and it would be left to conjecture. Allison tries to have it both ways; omnipotent knowledge of impossible information regarding characterization of another character and narrative of one self-knowing character only. And so she fails then at making Glen seem dynamic.

And although the major course of Bone’s life in the novel is decided by her interactions with Glen, I find it interesting that most discussion of him abruptly drops away for chapters and chapters (even though chronologically he interacts with her the whole time) and then he suddenly viciously beats and rapes her. Some mention for continuity and psychological insight needs to be made, though the point that her relationship with him is not all that shapes her is well-made. The gospel music obsession, Shannon, and living with her aunts all fill out her personality a bit. Still it bewilders when the book ends nearly at its climax and we find that the entire point of her life is the rape/ongoing abuse by her father-figure, so what was all the previous development for?

Allison adds unrealistic details, such as indicating that Bone is not racist. I find it hard to believe that a poor Southern white girl living in an undefined earlier era would somehow be the only person to escape the prejudiced mindset everyone else around her obviously shares. Making her a racist would be realistic but uncomfortable for white readers especially to identify with her since no one wants to empathize with a racist. Thus Allison’s self-congratulatory detail (at least her protagonist isn’t racist) detracts from the otherwise well described environment Bone grows up in.

I get a feeling that this book is semi-autobiographical; if that is so I would recommend instead Maya Angelou’s autobiographical I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which deals with much of the same subject matter with the huge difference that Angelou knows how to write properly.