What do you think?
Rate this book
Trash
Trash, Allison's landmark collection, laid the groundwork for her critically acclaimed Bastard Out of Carolina, the National Book Award finalist that was hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "simply stunning...a wonderful work of fiction by a major talent." In addition to Allison's classic stories, this new edition of Trash features "Stubborn Girls and Mean Stories," an introduction in which Allison discusses the writing of Trash and "Compassion," a never-before-published short story.
First published in 1988, the award-winning Trash showcases Allison at her most fearlessly honest and startlingly vivid. The limitless scope of human emotion and experience are depicted in stories that give aching and eloquent voice to the terrible wounds we inflict on those closest to us. These are tales of loss and redemption; of shame and forgiveness; of love and abuse and the healing power of storytelling.
A book that resonates with uncompromising candor and incandescence, Trash is sure to captivate Allison's legion of readers and win her a devoted new following.
First published in 1988, the award-winning Trash showcases Allison at her most fearlessly honest and startlingly vivid. The limitless scope of human emotion and experience are depicted in stories that give aching and eloquent voice to the terrible wounds we inflict on those closest to us. These are tales of loss and redemption; of shame and forgiveness; of love and abuse and the healing power of storytelling.
A book that resonates with uncompromising candor and incandescence, Trash is sure to captivate Allison's legion of readers and win her a devoted new following.
240 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1988
About the author
Dorothy Allison
74 books1,509 followersDorothy Allison is an American writer, speaker, and member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Themes in Allison's work include class struggle, child and sexual abuse, women, lesbianism, feminism, and family.
Allison's first novel, the semi-autobiographical Bastard Out of Carolina, was published in 1992 and was one of five finalists for the 1992 National Book Award.
Allison founded The Independent Spirit Award in 1998, a prize given annually to an individual whose work within the small press and independent bookstore circuit has helped sustain that enterprise.
Allison's first novel, the semi-autobiographical Bastard Out of Carolina, was published in 1992 and was one of five finalists for the 1992 National Book Award.
Allison founded The Independent Spirit Award in 1998, a prize given annually to an individual whose work within the small press and independent bookstore circuit has helped sustain that enterprise.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 263 reviews
March 22, 2023
I have just finished listening to this book in the audible version almost 10 years after I first read it in the print version. The audible and e-book is a new introduction to the book with a new preface by the author, which is definitely interesting to read. It is a different experience to listen to the audible version of the book rather than reading the printed word.
I am not going to change my previous rating of the book as five stars although my impression of the book the second time around might be a little different. The author is known as groundbreaking as she deals with both violence against women and children, as well as lesbianism. I have to admit that as a guy I thought there was a bit too much graphic, lesbian sex in this book. At least more than I wanted to know about!
——————————————
This is an amazing book. It is filled with stories. Some stories of brutality that you pray you will never experience and some about the strength of families that you might look for, even hope for.
My first book by Dorothy Allison was Bastard Out of Carolina. I gave it five stars http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25... and wanted to read more. It took me six months to pick up the next book. I picked Trash because I like short stories and it is one of Allison’s first published books, maybe the first. I liked Dorothy right away. It was hard for me not to like a lesbian author who writes freely and proudly about her lesbian life. And there is plenty of that in Trash. If you want to read her, get used to her being in your face!
After experiencing some of what is called life, Dorothy said, “I began to dream longingly of my own death.” Thus Trash begins and Allison’s writing career gets off to a shaky start.
The first pages after the preface are called River of Names. Story after story of unspeakable physical and verbal violence against children and babies. You cannot believe anyone could do what is told. But the storyteller Dorothy says, “But I lie.” You have to believe her because what she says could not be true.
But there is also humor. I do not lie. Here is an example of a joke:
Laughing yet?
Actually, the story I’m Working on My Charm about waitressing is funny. I thought so anyway. And the story Steal Away about shoplifting through college is another one where I have to ask, ‘Fact or Fiction?’ But you have to hope that you have left the shear brutality behind.
As is true with many short story collections, some have appeared in print publications previously. And some appear in her books subsequently. For me they accommodate re-reading quite nicely.
I am not sure why I am focused on the truth or fiction of the writing. The truth may be that her writing is autobiographical but leans a little away from the truth. Some of her books are listed as non-fiction and some as fiction. I don’t know who decided that. But she does come to the question of lies regularly. Here is an exchange with Toni, one of her more than several lovers that we meet in the book.
Some criticize her for writing that apparently condones the promiscuity of her life. Maybe it is just serial monogamy as a result of the number of years of change and alert flirting.
Dorothy Allison makes fun of Southern writers.
Toni goes on to dissect Allison’s own writing and storytelling in a way that lets us know what Allison thinks about her own writing. The story Monkeybites is a ranting self analysis given as a lovers’ quarrel between two women. It is powerful.
There is no doubt that Dorothy Allison is putting herself out there for us to see. This book is from twenty-five years ago. It is from a time when lesbians were coming out more frequently and with fewer apologies. Dorothy Allison is one of those. This book strongly reflects her lesbianism. The Helen Reddy 1972 song, “I am Woman, hear me roar” predates Allison by a decade but its words describe her and the many others coming out in the 80s. “I am invincible.”
This book starts out so intense it is hard to imagine how it could sustain that level for the entire book. I think it is actually good to say that the intensity does back off after the first couple of chapters but it easily maintains its level as an excellent work. Now I have read two Dorothy Allison books and rated both five stars. I think I will move on to another of her books to see if she holds her high quality.
Oh, and get ready to learn Dorothy’s version of lesbian life. She says she been part of it since she was seventeen. She was born in 1949 so it seems she came out in the mid60s. You could say she had a rough early life and you can read about it in her writing. Let me not end this without saying the obvious: she is a feminist as well as considering herself a femme. I want to know more about her. Her work is autobiographical while still leaving some questions of “fact or fiction?” There does not seem to be a biography about her yet. Maybe after reading all her writing there is not much left to say.
One last thing before I let you go. If Dorothy Allison is ever to put together a cook book, it will be a Lesbian Cook Book.
Go read some Dorothy Allison! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do, as perverted as that may sound. You will read some great stories about lesbian sex. Now I’m done!
I am not going to change my previous rating of the book as five stars although my impression of the book the second time around might be a little different. The author is known as groundbreaking as she deals with both violence against women and children, as well as lesbianism. I have to admit that as a guy I thought there was a bit too much graphic, lesbian sex in this book. At least more than I wanted to know about!
——————————————
This is an amazing book. It is filled with stories. Some stories of brutality that you pray you will never experience and some about the strength of families that you might look for, even hope for.
My first book by Dorothy Allison was Bastard Out of Carolina. I gave it five stars http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25... and wanted to read more. It took me six months to pick up the next book. I picked Trash because I like short stories and it is one of Allison’s first published books, maybe the first. I liked Dorothy right away. It was hard for me not to like a lesbian author who writes freely and proudly about her lesbian life. And there is plenty of that in Trash. If you want to read her, get used to her being in your face!
There was a day in my life when I decided to live.
After my childhood, after all that long terrible struggle to simply survive, to escape my stepfather, uncles, speeding Pontiacs, broken glass and rotten floorboards, or that inevitable death by misadventure that claimed so many of my cousins; after watching so many die around me, I had not imagined that I would ever need to make such a choice. I had imagined the hunger for life in me was insatiable, endless, unshakable.
After experiencing some of what is called life, Dorothy said, “I began to dream longingly of my own death.” Thus Trash begins and Allison’s writing career gets off to a shaky start.
The first pages after the preface are called River of Names. Story after story of unspeakable physical and verbal violence against children and babies. You cannot believe anyone could do what is told. But the storyteller Dorothy says, “But I lie.” You have to believe her because what she says could not be true.
But there is also humor. I do not lie. Here is an example of a joke:
What’s a South Carolina virgin?
‘At’s a ten-year-old can run fast.
Laughing yet?
Actually, the story I’m Working on My Charm about waitressing is funny. I thought so anyway. And the story Steal Away about shoplifting through college is another one where I have to ask, ‘Fact or Fiction?’ But you have to hope that you have left the shear brutality behind.
As is true with many short story collections, some have appeared in print publications previously. And some appear in her books subsequently. For me they accommodate re-reading quite nicely.
I am not sure why I am focused on the truth or fiction of the writing. The truth may be that her writing is autobiographical but leans a little away from the truth. Some of her books are listed as non-fiction and some as fiction. I don’t know who decided that. But she does come to the question of lies regularly. Here is an exchange with Toni, one of her more than several lovers that we meet in the book.
“Keeping your eyes down and your voice so soft. Wearing those silly-assed sandals and damn-fool embroidered denim blouses. Always telling those drawling lies about all your cousins, and granddaddies, and uncles…”
“They ain’t lies.”
“Then they should be.”
Some criticize her for writing that apparently condones the promiscuity of her life. Maybe it is just serial monogamy as a result of the number of years of change and alert flirting.
Dorothy Allison makes fun of Southern writers.
Toni pulled a library book out of her backpack and tossed it in my direction. “Or Flannery O’Connor. This one’s just like you, honey. She’d have given you a vision of Jesus with monkey’s blood. She’d have had you chop off your own fingers and feed them to the monkey.” Toni hugged her pack to her ribs and rocked with giggles.
“Shit girl, it’s just too much, too Southern Gothic – catfish and monkeys and chewed-off fingers. Throw in a little red dirt and chicken feathers, a little incest and shotgun shells, and you could join the literary tradition.”
Toni goes on to dissect Allison’s own writing and storytelling in a way that lets us know what Allison thinks about her own writing. The story Monkeybites is a ranting self analysis given as a lovers’ quarrel between two women. It is powerful.
There is no doubt that Dorothy Allison is putting herself out there for us to see. This book is from twenty-five years ago. It is from a time when lesbians were coming out more frequently and with fewer apologies. Dorothy Allison is one of those. This book strongly reflects her lesbianism. The Helen Reddy 1972 song, “I am Woman, hear me roar” predates Allison by a decade but its words describe her and the many others coming out in the 80s. “I am invincible.”
This book starts out so intense it is hard to imagine how it could sustain that level for the entire book. I think it is actually good to say that the intensity does back off after the first couple of chapters but it easily maintains its level as an excellent work. Now I have read two Dorothy Allison books and rated both five stars. I think I will move on to another of her books to see if she holds her high quality.
Oh, and get ready to learn Dorothy’s version of lesbian life. She says she been part of it since she was seventeen. She was born in 1949 so it seems she came out in the mid60s. You could say she had a rough early life and you can read about it in her writing. Let me not end this without saying the obvious: she is a feminist as well as considering herself a femme. I want to know more about her. Her work is autobiographical while still leaving some questions of “fact or fiction?” There does not seem to be a biography about her yet. Maybe after reading all her writing there is not much left to say.
One last thing before I let you go. If Dorothy Allison is ever to put together a cook book, it will be a Lesbian Cook Book.
It’s true. The diet of poor Southerners is among the worst in the world, though it’s tasty, very tasty. There’s pork fat or chicken grease in every dish, white sugar in the cobblers, pralines, and fudge, and flour, fat, and salt in the gravies – lots of salt in everything. The vegetables got cooked to limp strands with no fiber left at all. Mothers give sidemeat to their toddlers as pacifiers and slip them whiskey with honey at the first sign of teething, a cold, or a fever. Most of my cousins lost their teeth in their twenties and took up drinking as early as they put sugar in their iced tea. I try not to eat so much sugar, try not to drink, try to limit pork and salt and white flour, but the truth is I am always hungry for it – the smell and taste of the food my mama fed me.
Go read some Dorothy Allison! I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do, as perverted as that may sound. You will read some great stories about lesbian sex. Now I’m done!
December 16, 2008
This is where i fell in love with Dorothy Allison - this is where i found a voice like no other and first heard her clear invocation of story as not merely survival but triumph - life itself lived with a degree of accountability that is specific to finding the language with which to face it.
May 17, 2012
Dorothy Allison is one of my favorite people, even though I don’t know her. I’ve shaken her hand and seen/heard her speak at Squaw Valley and at Tin House, though, and I’ve read enough of her work to know that she is one rare package of compassion, humor, and bitterness. Trash is full of early stories, stories from what she calls her “yellow pages”
in the forward, those pages being a legal pad on which she originally scribbled down recollections of her childhood with no thought of publication. She’d go back home to the motel where the war on poverty government put her up while she was in training for a position with the Social Security administration. There, with time on her hands and no money to go out, she’d write. Later on, she rewrote, then rewrote again. And, I guess, again. Then there were some stories added on, and what we end up with is a series of stories (“linked” as they like to say now.) about growing up in a particular house in a particular community that the world labeled as garbage.
Allison is not on a mission to sentimentalize or excuse her people--or herself. Most of her cousins, she says, were dead or drunk or pregnant or toothless at a young age. ‘There were so many we were without number and, like tadpoles, if there was one less from time to time, who counted? My maternal great-grandmother had six sons, five daughters. Each one made at least six. Some made nine. Six times six, eleven times nine. They went on like multiplication tables. They died and were not missed.” She herself was the victim of a molesting and physically abusive stepfather whom her mother (who had her while unmarried at fifteen) couldn’t quite figure out how to leave.
Though she doesn’t gloss over the uglies, she writes with great passion about the virtues, makes vicious (and well-deserved) fun of writers and others who deign to judge, to pretend they know what it’s like to grow up poor in Greenville, NC because they’ve read a little Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. Allison uses ��trash” to define herself in the defiant way that black people us “Nigger” and gays use “Queer.” We can call each other that name, but you better not. In truth, we have no other literary voice that I know of from Allison’s people. Neither Faulkner nor O’Connor, as effectively as they wrote about the south, came from the redneck poor life and folks from which Allison escaped. And neither of them was (at least openly) gay. And Allison is not only open, but fierce about it.
These stories are autobiographical, but they are not memoir. They stand as true pieces of fiction, and you can’t tell which is the biography and which is the made up. “Gospel Song,” is a good example, the story of her albino friend with parents who run a gospel singing troupe. Whether or not there really was a Shannon Pearl in Allison’s life, her friendship with another outcast becomes a true symbol of what it means to live reviled and rejected. And the closing story, “Compassion,” about her mother’s death is as touching a piece of prose as you’ll ever read. Love and cruelty nestled side by side. Almost operatic.
If you’re looking for booze, sex, and pot, you’ll find plenty of that in Trash as well. But what you’ll find mostly is well-crafted, deeply true and wrenching stories drawn directly from a worlds you can barely imagine.
in the forward, those pages being a legal pad on which she originally scribbled down recollections of her childhood with no thought of publication. She’d go back home to the motel where the war on poverty government put her up while she was in training for a position with the Social Security administration. There, with time on her hands and no money to go out, she’d write. Later on, she rewrote, then rewrote again. And, I guess, again. Then there were some stories added on, and what we end up with is a series of stories (“linked” as they like to say now.) about growing up in a particular house in a particular community that the world labeled as garbage.
Allison is not on a mission to sentimentalize or excuse her people--or herself. Most of her cousins, she says, were dead or drunk or pregnant or toothless at a young age. ‘There were so many we were without number and, like tadpoles, if there was one less from time to time, who counted? My maternal great-grandmother had six sons, five daughters. Each one made at least six. Some made nine. Six times six, eleven times nine. They went on like multiplication tables. They died and were not missed.” She herself was the victim of a molesting and physically abusive stepfather whom her mother (who had her while unmarried at fifteen) couldn’t quite figure out how to leave.
Though she doesn’t gloss over the uglies, she writes with great passion about the virtues, makes vicious (and well-deserved) fun of writers and others who deign to judge, to pretend they know what it’s like to grow up poor in Greenville, NC because they’ve read a little Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. Allison uses ��trash” to define herself in the defiant way that black people us “Nigger” and gays use “Queer.” We can call each other that name, but you better not. In truth, we have no other literary voice that I know of from Allison’s people. Neither Faulkner nor O’Connor, as effectively as they wrote about the south, came from the redneck poor life and folks from which Allison escaped. And neither of them was (at least openly) gay. And Allison is not only open, but fierce about it.
These stories are autobiographical, but they are not memoir. They stand as true pieces of fiction, and you can’t tell which is the biography and which is the made up. “Gospel Song,” is a good example, the story of her albino friend with parents who run a gospel singing troupe. Whether or not there really was a Shannon Pearl in Allison’s life, her friendship with another outcast becomes a true symbol of what it means to live reviled and rejected. And the closing story, “Compassion,” about her mother’s death is as touching a piece of prose as you’ll ever read. Love and cruelty nestled side by side. Almost operatic.
If you’re looking for booze, sex, and pot, you’ll find plenty of that in Trash as well. But what you’ll find mostly is well-crafted, deeply true and wrenching stories drawn directly from a worlds you can barely imagine.
Read
May 12, 2017"We are under so many illusions about our powers...illusions that vary with the moon, the mood, the moment. Waxing, we are all-powerful. We are the mother-destroyers, She-Who-Eats-Her-Young, devours her lover, her own heart; great-winged midnight creatures and the witches of legend. Waning, we are powerless. We are the outlaws of the earth, daughters of nightmare, victimized, raped, and abandoned in our own bodies. We tell ourselves lies and pretend not to know the difference. It takes all we have to know the truth, to believe in ourselves without reference to moon or magic.
"The only magic we have is what we make of ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing. I used to watch my mama hold off terror with only the edges of her own eyes for a shield, and I still don’t know how she did it. But I am her daughter and have as much muscle in me as she ever did. It’s just that some days I am not strong enough. I stretch myself out a little, and then my own fear pulls me back in. The shaking starts inside. Then I have to stretch myself again. Waxing and waning through my life, maybe I’m building up layers of strength inside me. Maybe."
- The Muscles of the Mind
"The only magic we have is what we make of ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing. I used to watch my mama hold off terror with only the edges of her own eyes for a shield, and I still don’t know how she did it. But I am her daughter and have as much muscle in me as she ever did. It’s just that some days I am not strong enough. I stretch myself out a little, and then my own fear pulls me back in. The shaking starts inside. Then I have to stretch myself again. Waxing and waning through my life, maybe I’m building up layers of strength inside me. Maybe."
- The Muscles of the Mind
Read
June 30, 2015While this collection of stories is slim, odds are it’ll take you a few days to trek through. I was confident it was a two-night read, but the gritty, harnessed prose slowed me up and caused it to take about a week. When you read one of Allison’s stories, it takes time to digest. As a reader I was encouraged to dissect each one, but felt as if the job had already been done for me intentionally. Digging for the deeper meaning seems entirely against Allison’s intention, but at the same time is gut-wrenchingly necessary. Everything is on the table. — Aram Mrjoian
from The Best Books We Read In May: http://bookriot.com/2015/06/02/riot-r...
from The Best Books We Read In May: http://bookriot.com/2015/06/02/riot-r...
September 19, 2016
This is one that I initially read in a writing workshop class in college; my copy ended up going home with a roommate, but the stories stuck with me anyway. It recently popped into my head again, and of course the library had a copy, so I decided it was time for a re-read.
In short, it's a fantastic collection. The stories are hard and unsentimental, often violent and sometimes horrifying, but also surprisingly beautiful at times. Nothing is presented about how things ought to be; it is simply how they are. The tactile details, the voices of each character, the rough desperation, rage, and stubborn acceptance are immediate, immersive, and real. The stories are short, and it's quick to simply read all the words on the page, but each story demands reflection and digestion. It's not an easy read, but well-worth the effort.
In short, it's a fantastic collection. The stories are hard and unsentimental, often violent and sometimes horrifying, but also surprisingly beautiful at times. Nothing is presented about how things ought to be; it is simply how they are. The tactile details, the voices of each character, the rough desperation, rage, and stubborn acceptance are immediate, immersive, and real. The stories are short, and it's quick to simply read all the words on the page, but each story demands reflection and digestion. It's not an easy read, but well-worth the effort.
June 25, 2009
get it. worship dorothy allison. give her overly long and unwanted hugs. ask if you can make a movie about her. pretend you don't mind when she politely refuses. bury your hurt in pulled pork sandwiches.
March 26, 2019
1. I grew up watching the movie Bastard Out of Carolina. I was obsessed with it. In 2018 I finally read the book and it was just as good. I love Dorothy Allison’s writing. It’s matter of fact and describes country life perfectly. This book didn’t disappoint. Some of the stories were mentioned in both books but I didn’t even care.
2. I enjoyed the beginning and middle of the book more than the ending.
3. I loved the introduction just as much as the rest of the book.
“ We become what we did not intend, and still the one thing I know for sure is that only my sense of humor will sustain me.”
“Sometimes I was so angry, I wrote to stop my own rage. Mostly I was angry, and drunk on words, the sound of words more than the way they looked on the page.”
“Why write stories? To join the conversation. Literature is a conversation-a lively enthralling exchange that constantly challenges and widens our own imagination.”
“The decision to live when everything inside and out shouts death is not a matter of moments but years, and no one has ever told me how you know when it is accomplished.”
“Some days I think the way to make a storyteller is to refuse to tell her what happened.”
4. She talked about being put on probation for wearing a pantsuit to the office instead of a dress and that her stepfather had to cosign on her credit card application. That’s some Handmaid’s Tale crap.
5. Eight year old Tommy hanging in the barn. :(
6. Other quotes I loved:
“‘What did your grandmother smell like?’
I lie to her the way I always do, a lie stolen from a book. ‘Like lavender,’ stomach churning over the memory of sour sweat and snuff.”
“The smallest, sharpest, most expensive items rested behind my teeth, behind that smile that remained my ultimate shield.”
“Bullshit and apple butter. I’m just more woman than the men in this town can handle. And I’ve more left to me than most people get to start out.”
7. These parts sickened me:
“Almost always, we were raped, my cousins and I. That was some kind of joke, too.
‘What’s a South Carolina virgin?’
‘’At’s a ten-year-old can run fast.’”
On rape: “With the prick still in them, the broom handle, the tree branch, the grease gun...objects, things not to be believed...whiskey bottles, can openers, grass shears, glass, metal, vegetables...not to be believed, not to be believed.”
Someone throwing a match at someone to teach them a lesson when they had gasoline all over them.
Someone using their son to beat up other men. “Uncle Matthew started swinging [Bo] like a scythe, going after the bigger boys, Bo’s head thudding their shoulders, their hips. Afterward, Bo crawled around in the dirt, the blood running out of his ears and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.”
8. The chapter “Mama” reminded me so much of my own mom that it made me tear up in places and I read the quotes to her that I loved the most.
“Our mother’s body is with us in its details. She is recreated in each of us; strength of bone and the skin curling over the thick flesh the women of our family have always worn.
“Sometimes my love for her would choke me and I would ache to have her open her eyes and see me there, to see how much I loved her.”
“But the idea that anything could touch my mother, that anything would dare to hurt her, was impossible to bear.”
“I thought of my mama like a mountain or a cave, a force of nature, a woman who had saved her own life and mine, and would surely save us both over and over again.”
“But Mama grew into my body like an extra layer of warm protective fat, closing me around.”
9. I love that she said that loving Shannon Pearl was a lesson in love because of her albinism.
10. Her mom ticked me off when she took away her daughter's “Thursday big tip night” so she could get all the tips instead.
11. I want to read the books she mentioned Sadism in the Movies and The Sexual Life of Savages.
12. Her obsession with greens is my life. That was my entire childhood and I could eat greens with bacon and a little hot pepper every single day.
13. She was attracted to her cousin Temple and she was 11 years older. There’s a lot going on with that relationship...
14. I have literally never heard of the sport jai alai.
15. I learned that the Barr dollars are only worth, at the most, $20.
2. I enjoyed the beginning and middle of the book more than the ending.
3. I loved the introduction just as much as the rest of the book.
“ We become what we did not intend, and still the one thing I know for sure is that only my sense of humor will sustain me.”
“Sometimes I was so angry, I wrote to stop my own rage. Mostly I was angry, and drunk on words, the sound of words more than the way they looked on the page.”
“Why write stories? To join the conversation. Literature is a conversation-a lively enthralling exchange that constantly challenges and widens our own imagination.”
“The decision to live when everything inside and out shouts death is not a matter of moments but years, and no one has ever told me how you know when it is accomplished.”
“Some days I think the way to make a storyteller is to refuse to tell her what happened.”
4. She talked about being put on probation for wearing a pantsuit to the office instead of a dress and that her stepfather had to cosign on her credit card application. That’s some Handmaid’s Tale crap.
5. Eight year old Tommy hanging in the barn. :(
6. Other quotes I loved:
“‘What did your grandmother smell like?’
I lie to her the way I always do, a lie stolen from a book. ‘Like lavender,’ stomach churning over the memory of sour sweat and snuff.”
“The smallest, sharpest, most expensive items rested behind my teeth, behind that smile that remained my ultimate shield.”
“Bullshit and apple butter. I’m just more woman than the men in this town can handle. And I’ve more left to me than most people get to start out.”
7. These parts sickened me:
“Almost always, we were raped, my cousins and I. That was some kind of joke, too.
‘What’s a South Carolina virgin?’
‘’At’s a ten-year-old can run fast.’”
On rape: “With the prick still in them, the broom handle, the tree branch, the grease gun...objects, things not to be believed...whiskey bottles, can openers, grass shears, glass, metal, vegetables...not to be believed, not to be believed.”
Someone throwing a match at someone to teach them a lesson when they had gasoline all over them.
Someone using their son to beat up other men. “Uncle Matthew started swinging [Bo] like a scythe, going after the bigger boys, Bo’s head thudding their shoulders, their hips. Afterward, Bo crawled around in the dirt, the blood running out of his ears and his tongue hanging out of his mouth.”
8. The chapter “Mama” reminded me so much of my own mom that it made me tear up in places and I read the quotes to her that I loved the most.
“Our mother’s body is with us in its details. She is recreated in each of us; strength of bone and the skin curling over the thick flesh the women of our family have always worn.
“Sometimes my love for her would choke me and I would ache to have her open her eyes and see me there, to see how much I loved her.”
“But the idea that anything could touch my mother, that anything would dare to hurt her, was impossible to bear.”
“I thought of my mama like a mountain or a cave, a force of nature, a woman who had saved her own life and mine, and would surely save us both over and over again.”
“But Mama grew into my body like an extra layer of warm protective fat, closing me around.”
9. I love that she said that loving Shannon Pearl was a lesson in love because of her albinism.
10. Her mom ticked me off when she took away her daughter's “Thursday big tip night” so she could get all the tips instead.
11. I want to read the books she mentioned Sadism in the Movies and The Sexual Life of Savages.
12. Her obsession with greens is my life. That was my entire childhood and I could eat greens with bacon and a little hot pepper every single day.
13. She was attracted to her cousin Temple and she was 11 years older. There’s a lot going on with that relationship...
14. I have literally never heard of the sport jai alai.
15. I learned that the Barr dollars are only worth, at the most, $20.
August 21, 2020
Some of the most honest writing I've ever encountered. The choice of characters, the nonlinear ordering, the kind of language that can fill a mouth and be swallowed whole... a medicine book for survivors of family and childhood violence. Not always easy to read, but entirely worth it.
April 24, 2019
Allison is not a writer whose work I read for fun, no. She delves so much in the darker edges of poor Southern life---with its violence, meanness, anger, struggle, and bigotry. Tough people, many of whom work hard and try to keep themselves above water, while so many turn to more destructive choices. Surely part of her appeal (beyond that to the lesbian community) is her willingness to explain what most people choose to ignore. It is hard for me to call these stories fiction (and I know they are often described as autobiographical), because they feel so much more like nonfiction (and yes, they say one should write what they know). The stories I liked best were "Gospel Song" and "I'm Working on My Charm." "Meanest Women Ever Left Tennessee" was good, but hard to like. The little section on stealing was interesting. It was hard to read about caring for her mother at the end.
September 9, 2024
Oh Dorothy Allison, chaque fois que je te lis je t'aime un peu plus. (et dire que je n'ai pas encore réussi à mettre la main sur "Peau" !)
Trash a été traduit récemment, mais il a été publié pour la première fois dans les années 80. Il s'agit de plusieurs histoires courtes, très largement inspirées de sa vie, même si la préface est là pour donner le contexte de cette écriture, et que le recueil n'est pas présentée comme autobiographique.
On retrouve les thèmes qui sont l'ossature de son œuvre : la pauvreté, le sud des Etats-Unis, les abus sexuels, sa mère, le lesbianisme... mais aussi un grand amour pour la nourriture, avec une histoire entière consacrée aux plats de son enfance ou à ce qu'elle aime manger (y compris les femmes) ! Franchement, j'ai hyper envie de manger des scones au babeurre à cause d'elle.
C'est dur, très dur, comme toujours. D'autant plus avec les chapitres sur les cancers de sa mère, et le dernier sur l'accompagnement dans sa fin de vie. Beaucoup trop proche de ma réalité, mais bon, autant aller jusqu'au bout de la lecture hein.
Heureusement, il y a aussi beaucoup de beaux moments, familiaux, amicaux, amoureux. Beaucoup de liberté dans la vie qu'elle se choisit, après avoir quitté sa petite ville natale pour étudier et militer.
Lisez Dorothy, diffusez ses écrits ! Merci encore à Cambourakis pour ces tradutions.
Trash a été traduit récemment, mais il a été publié pour la première fois dans les années 80. Il s'agit de plusieurs histoires courtes, très largement inspirées de sa vie, même si la préface est là pour donner le contexte de cette écriture, et que le recueil n'est pas présentée comme autobiographique.
On retrouve les thèmes qui sont l'ossature de son œuvre : la pauvreté, le sud des Etats-Unis, les abus sexuels, sa mère, le lesbianisme... mais aussi un grand amour pour la nourriture, avec une histoire entière consacrée aux plats de son enfance ou à ce qu'elle aime manger (y compris les femmes) ! Franchement, j'ai hyper envie de manger des scones au babeurre à cause d'elle.
C'est dur, très dur, comme toujours. D'autant plus avec les chapitres sur les cancers de sa mère, et le dernier sur l'accompagnement dans sa fin de vie. Beaucoup trop proche de ma réalité, mais bon, autant aller jusqu'au bout de la lecture hein.
Heureusement, il y a aussi beaucoup de beaux moments, familiaux, amicaux, amoureux. Beaucoup de liberté dans la vie qu'elle se choisit, après avoir quitté sa petite ville natale pour étudier et militer.
Lisez Dorothy, diffusez ses écrits ! Merci encore à Cambourakis pour ces tradutions.
Read
August 8, 2023"River of Names" broke me, and that was the first story. Also the hardest, although this whole collection was a rough read. Much that was good, with a few that didn't do as much for me, although I enjoyed several of her stories about the women's collective.
I watched the movie of "Bastard Out of Carolina" the other night. There were times when I had to look away from the screen. I was not expecting that and I don't think that has ever happened to me before. Dorothy Allison as a writer and Anjelica Huston as a director are both uncompromising, which makes a hard watch. And Bone and her stepfather were both so perfectly cast that it was frightening.
I watched the movie of "Bastard Out of Carolina" the other night. There were times when I had to look away from the screen. I was not expecting that and I don't think that has ever happened to me before. Dorothy Allison as a writer and Anjelica Huston as a director are both uncompromising, which makes a hard watch. And Bone and her stepfather were both so perfectly cast that it was frightening.
December 22, 2010
This is powerful, intense, moving writing. The introduction alone is a stunning piece of work, describing the author's decision "to live" and to write her stories. It is a testament to the power the creation of literature has to save and sustain a life. The standard frequenty cited to determine whether or not someone is a "real writer" is whether or not that person would write if they knew no one would ever read their work. In Dorothy Allison's case, the choice between writing and not writing is presented as a literal choice between life and death. I believe we can confidently call Dorothy Allison a "real writer". The stories in this volume are often startling in their power; there is no other way to put it: life is right there, staring and grabbing at you from the pages.
September 18, 2008
Dorothy Allison writes in the Southern tradition with a twist--she's a lesbian and she's not ashamed of it, even coming from a dirt poor family that places importance on how many babies you can produce and how well you marry. This slim book is a collection of short memoir narratives that read as if Allison is sitting right in front of you, sipping on sweet tea and smoking a cigarette, while she divulges all of her secrets. Some secrets are raw and painful while others are delightful and sensuous--but they all have one thing in common--they are real. And wonderful. And leaves your flesh craving more. Highly recommend!
January 6, 2023
Hot, raw, searing. This book made me want to be gayer, braver, and more honest. Each story moves differently, but Dorothy Allison darts gracefully between pleasure and suffering throughout this collection. She tells the truth in a manner that makes it hard to look away, inviting readers into deeper presence.
March 30, 2017
River of Names and her introduction are worth the price of admission here.
January 26, 2020
more between 3,5 and 4
«Mama» and «Don’t tell me you don’t know» were amazing and I enjoyed most of the stories that focussed on her family.
«Mama» and «Don’t tell me you don’t know» were amazing and I enjoyed most of the stories that focussed on her family.
September 29, 2020
I've said this about a lot of books recently, but reading this felt truly life-changing.
In the introduction to this collection, Allison talks about how writing these stories was a means of releasing rage she had been carrying around her entire life. These stories are more than just catharsis, though—they are a fight for visibility, for the stories of poor Southerners to be told without caricatures or stereotypes, for survivors to outlive their abusers just by making their survival immortal on the page. Allison is phenomenal at balancing honesty with poetic language, & tough love with tender compassion. This collection needs to come with a major content warning for physical & sexual abuse—though the descriptions are brief, they are brutal.
This book was game-changing when it was first released in 1988, & it still feels game-changing to me in 2020. Allison is honest & unflinching in a way I am still aspiring to as both a writer & a person. I cannot wait to dig in to even more of her work. My personal favorite stories in the collection: “River of Names”, “Gospel Song”, "Monkeybites", “Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Know”, “A Lesbian Appetite”, & “Compassion”.
In the introduction to this collection, Allison talks about how writing these stories was a means of releasing rage she had been carrying around her entire life. These stories are more than just catharsis, though—they are a fight for visibility, for the stories of poor Southerners to be told without caricatures or stereotypes, for survivors to outlive their abusers just by making their survival immortal on the page. Allison is phenomenal at balancing honesty with poetic language, & tough love with tender compassion. This collection needs to come with a major content warning for physical & sexual abuse—though the descriptions are brief, they are brutal.
This book was game-changing when it was first released in 1988, & it still feels game-changing to me in 2020. Allison is honest & unflinching in a way I am still aspiring to as both a writer & a person. I cannot wait to dig in to even more of her work. My personal favorite stories in the collection: “River of Names”, “Gospel Song”, "Monkeybites", “Don’t Tell Me You Don’t Know”, “A Lesbian Appetite”, & “Compassion”.
July 20, 2018
Reading Dorothy Allison has profoundly reconnected me to my roots, to writing, to feeling lust for women in a small town. As a friend described, her writing is "raw but polished" and I couldn't agree more. I've been reading many of her stories out-loud <3
I LOVED the stories "I'm working on my charm" and "Lesbian appetite" most out of this collection, but I truly adore them all.
Favorite character/scene from this book from story "Steal Away" about a girl who is questioned for being poor from her professors and states: "I limited my outrage to their office shelves, working my way through their books one at a time, carefully underlining my favorite passages in dark blue ink - occasionally covering their own faded marks. ... heavy blue ink stains showed on the binding itself."
<3 UGH. perfection. <3 I need to read everything she has written now.
I LOVED the stories "I'm working on my charm" and "Lesbian appetite" most out of this collection, but I truly adore them all.
Favorite character/scene from this book from story "Steal Away" about a girl who is questioned for being poor from her professors and states: "I limited my outrage to their office shelves, working my way through their books one at a time, carefully underlining my favorite passages in dark blue ink - occasionally covering their own faded marks. ... heavy blue ink stains showed on the binding itself."
<3 UGH. perfection. <3 I need to read everything she has written now.
April 12, 2019
I don't remember how I came across this book, and didn't remember what it was about when I checked it out from the library. It's not for the easily triggered--lots of familial sexual assault, emotional and physical violence, etc. Also lots of lesbian sex, but not rendered in a smutty way. Allison writes really, really well, and she understands people. It did feel a bit like Rubyfruit Jungle in that way, though maybe I just need to read more Southern lesbian semi-autobiography?
May 9, 2022
Sono terrosi i racconti di questa raccolta, sanno di grasso, di zucchero, di sudore e tabacco. Mescolano la rabbia all’affetto, l’amore al risentimento. Esorcizzano demoni, perdonano ma non dimenticano. Se non puoi sconfiggere le offese che ti vengono fatte - trash, dyke - la strada che ti rimane è rivendicarle, ribaltarle, celebrarne le ferite così come le vittorie. È un percorso di riappropriazione, di riconciliazione quello che Dorothy Allison intraprende in queste pagine. Con la sua famiglia, con le donne che ha amato, con se stessa. A volte dolente, a volte violento, a volte sprezzante. I racconti migliori per me sono quelli familiari, ‘Non dirmi che non sai’ la gemma della raccolta.
July 19, 2021
Cruda raccolta di racconti semi-autobiografici di un'autrice che ricorda la sua vita da lesbica nella South Carolina degli anni 80, cresciuta in, e poi scappata da, una famiglia white trash fatta di abusi e poca speranza.
Un triste quadro del Sud povero e polveroso che mette al centro la dignità stoica delle donne della famiglia Allison, indiscusse protagoniste dei racconti.
Un triste quadro del Sud povero e polveroso che mette al centro la dignità stoica delle donne della famiglia Allison, indiscusse protagoniste dei racconti.
June 14, 2023
terminé amando la manera como habla de su vida y algunas situaciones terribles siempre hablando desde la honestidad de no ser una persona perfecta y mas bien a veces una terrible persona. La amo y justicia para Shanon Pearl.
May 29, 2022
Phenomenal collection about poverty, lesbian sexuality, grief, and staying connected to Southern roots. Some of these stories are brutal, but there’s a sense of authenticity and care at their core.
February 28, 2024
Tough stories
July 8, 2024
mixed bag but more like than not, my faves are back to back chapters Demon Lover and Her Thighs, also liked Deciding to Live and A Lesbian Appetite.
December 11, 2022
incredible!! probably my favorite short story collection i’ve read this year <3
January 15, 2023
some of the short stories landed for me better than others. my two favorites were “river of names” and “monkeybites.” in both, young people recount childhood stories to their lovers and don’t feel fully heard, and allison captures that disconnect painfully well.
also! the lesbian stamp allison puts on eggplant in “a lesbian appetite” decades before the advent of the emoji keyboard is so fun and probably the most memorable image of the collection!
also! the lesbian stamp allison puts on eggplant in “a lesbian appetite” decades before the advent of the emoji keyboard is so fun and probably the most memorable image of the collection!
June 24, 2022
3,5/5
January 28, 2011
This collection of short stories by Dorothy Allison is as much a book about writing as it is a book of powerfully written short stories. The book's introduction explains how the author found her voice as a writer and what she has learned about writing and herself since this book was first published. The stories themselves are beautifully written and demonstrate tremendous insights into human relationships.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book. (Each quote has been added to the GoodReads quotes database.)
"Before I published any of my own stories, I read a great many stories by people as passionate about writing as I was, and I learned something from everyone I read -- something most important what I should not try to write." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"Why write stories? To join the conversation." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my terrors and helplessness, to make it visible and real in a tangible way, in the way other people's seemed real -- the lives I had read about in books." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"When my mama was twenty-five she already had an old woman's hands, and I feared them. I did not know then what it was that scared me so. I've come to understand since that it was the thought of her growing old, of her dying and leaving me alone. I feared those brown spots, those wrinkles and cracks that lined her wrists, ankles, and the soft shadowed sides of her eyes." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"Piece by piece, my mother is being stolen from me." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book. (Each quote has been added to the GoodReads quotes database.)
"Before I published any of my own stories, I read a great many stories by people as passionate about writing as I was, and I learned something from everyone I read -- something most important what I should not try to write." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"Why write stories? To join the conversation." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"I did not imagine anyone reading my rambling, ranting stories. I was writing for myself, trying to shape my life outside my terrors and helplessness, to make it visible and real in a tangible way, in the way other people's seemed real -- the lives I had read about in books." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"When my mama was twenty-five she already had an old woman's hands, and I feared them. I did not know then what it was that scared me so. I've come to understand since that it was the thought of her growing old, of her dying and leaving me alone. I feared those brown spots, those wrinkles and cracks that lined her wrists, ankles, and the soft shadowed sides of her eyes." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"Piece by piece, my mother is being stolen from me." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
"Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama." — Dorothy Allison (Trash)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 263 reviews