Book Review: Bastard Out of Carolina, by Dorothy Allison

A brutal story about a girl with a mother who loves her but loves her abusive stepfather more.

Penguin Books, 1992, 336 pages

Greenville County, South Carolina, is a wild, lush place that is home to the Boatwright family - a tight-knit clan of rough-hewn, hard- drinking men who shoot up each other's trucks, and indomitable women who get married young and age too quickly. At the heart of this story is Ruth Anne Boatwright, known simply as Bone, a bastard child who observes the world around her with a mercilessly keen perspective. When her stepfather, Daddy Glen, "cold as death, mean as a snake", becomes increasingly more vicious toward her, Bone finds herself caught in a family triangle that tests the loyalty of her mother, Anney - and leads to a final, harrowing encounter from which there can be no turning back.

( Who's the greater villain: the victimizer or the one who stands by him? )

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