Monthly Review: Bastard out of Carolina

I read the book Bastards out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison is mainly about a girl named Ruth Anne Boatwright, but also known as Bone, is a South Carolina bastard with an annotated birth certificate to tell the tale in this book. She finds herself caught in a family triangle between her, her mother Anney, and her step father Glen. This book has a very strong depth of tones and physical violence; it almost seemed so real.

8. Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth.
I choose to write about Glen Waddell. Glen is the son of a socially prominent dairy owner. Anney, Bone’s mother marries him two years later after becoming pregnant but the baby end up dying in Anney’s stomach, which is a still born baby boy. The family’s fortune falls down hill and Glen losing his job after job due to his anger management problems. I have to say Glen is a two faced jerk. He has been nice and loving and gentle with Bone in the beginning, and he say that he loves her very much and her family and his wife, Anney, but then all of a sudden, he sexually molested her. The child abuse culminates in beatings and whipping that leave Bone nursing bruises and broken bones.
Anney finds out about the abuse that Glen did to Bone, and she leaves Glen, but he ran after her acting all guilty and crying and begging on his knees for her to take him back and promises her that he will never do it again. Anney was weak and useless and I say desperate, that she takes him back and the abuse and sexual content continues. Anney leaves Glen once again after her brother beat up Glen from finding out he’s been abusing her and beating her once again. Bone tells her mother that she will never live in the same house with Glen again. Anney told Bone that she won’t go back with Glen unless Bone comes with her. Glen finds out about all this and he got mad and attacks Bone at her Aunt Alma’s house, raping her on the kitchen floor. Anney walks in on him and started hitting him and beating him. Anney dragged Bone out to the car and Glen follows, begging for mercy and that he rather be killed than having his wife abandon him. Anney ends up crying and then again, goes back to Glen… For my analysis about Glen is that he is a selfish two faced jerk who always gets what he wants. If he doesn’t get what he wants then he’ll just fall down a hill and feel like he wants to die. I don’t see why Glen has to abuse Bone and especially rape her. I mean, rape is just like sex, but you just don’t like it right? Why would he have unwanted sex with an 11 year old who doesn’t even know what’s going on when he can have sex all he wants with Anney? I heard you can die from having sex. Is he trying to kill Bone? This makes no sense, unless he has some mental problems up in his brain. But that’s just my opinion.

3. What are the weaknesses of this book, in your opinion?
For me, there are many weaknesses in this book, well I guess it depends on what you mean by the weaknesses of this book, is it like, the parts where I don’t understand even though I kept reading it and reading it repeatedly? Because I think this book is very boring itself and there are only like a few parts that I liked reading, like the Glen and Bone raping and beating incident or the Shannon and fire burning killing suicide incident and Anney and Glen acting all desperate for each other. And of course the ending of the book is okay; it’s not as boring as the middle parts, and especially not as boring as the beginning because all Dorothy Allison talks about is Bone’s family in the beginning; apparently Bone has a lot of family members that I got all confused by remembering all of them and knowing who is who. There are several weak spots in this book in my opinion, but then for other people who have read her books think she’s one hell of a writer, but I honestly thing this book is just plain boring, I’m sorry to say, but it’s just is.

2. For what audience(s) is this book intended, and how can you tell? (In other words, for whom would you recommend this book?)
The audience this book is intended to is obviously for the people who loves reading books like this; relationship between a mother and daughter, intense raping scenes, conditions of class, race, and sex. For my friends, I have a lot of friends who likes to read, like Priscilla Ng, I remember she told me how she hated reading books back in middle school but once school started, she was in my English and we would always read our independent reading books for the first 20 minutes of class. Then she got interested in reading, but I know that she won’t get interested in reading this kind of book. I don’t know who else who loves reading who would want to read this book. I mean, there are people who does not even like to read books at all who have read a couple of books that they have really liked. But the people I would recommend this book to is probably my cousin. She loves reading books, she’s such a book worm. I think she have read books that are this intense and I bet she’ll enjoy reading this. I think I’m planning on asking her if she read it or not. If not, I’ll tell her to read it. Oh yeah and also one of my other friend, she loves reading too and she wants to become a famous writer one day. I think write now she’s working on her first book. I don’t know what it’s called, she don’t even have the title named yet but I read her prologue, and it’s very good. I can picture the scene and stuff. And I am looking forward to reading her book. Back to the subject… I’ll recommend this book to people who loves reading (anything) and/or people who likes this type of story genre.