Bastard Out of Carolina

For the film adaptation, see Bastard Out of Carolina (film).

Bastard Out of Carolina

Author	Dorothy Allison
Language	English
Genre	Drama Coming-of-age novel
Publisher	Dutton
Publication date	March 1992
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (hardcover & paperback)
Pages	309 pp
ISBN	978-0-525-93425-7 (1st ed. hardcover)
OCLC	24502970

Bastard Out of Carolina is a 1992 novel by Dorothy Allison. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the book is set in Allison's hometown of Greenville, South Carolina in the 1950s. Narrated by Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright, the primary conflict occurs between Bone and her mother's husband, Glen Waddell.

The novel examines the complexities of mother–child relationships, as well as conditions of class, race, and sexuality in the American South, all of which play out in Bone's life and her relationships with others.

The book was adapted into a film in 1996.

Named as one of the 136 Great American Novels by The Atlantic in March 2024.

Plot

The book opens with Bone relating the details of her birth. Bone's 15-year-old mother, Anney, gives birth after being seriously injured in a car accident. Anney is not married, and is comatose during delivery. Anney's older sister, Ruth, and their mother try to give a false name for Bone's father, and are caught in their deception. Bone is declared a bastard, a child born out of wedlock, and "illegitimate” is stamped in big red letters on her birth certificate. Anney, who "hated to be called trash", spends the next two years unsuccessfully petitioning to get a new birth certificate issued. This opens her up to the ridicule of customers at the diner where she works.

At 17, Anney marries Lyle Parsons and gives birth to another daughter, Reese, soon after. Lyle is killed in a car accident, leaving Anney "all bitter grief and hunger". After remaining single for a few years, she dates Glen Waddell, the son of a socially prominent dairy owner. They marry two years later, when Anney is pregnant once again.

Anney gives birth to a stillborn boy, and is unable to have more children. While Anney is in labor, Glen rapes Bone in the car. The family's fortunes plummet, with Glen losing job after job due to his anger management problems. He begins abusing Bone physically; beatings and whippings leave her with bruises and broken bones.

When Anney discovers the abuse, she leaves Glen, who promises never to do it again. Anney takes him back, and the abuse resumes. Anney leaves Glen again after her tough, hard-drinking brothers beat Glen to a bloody pulp when they discover the abuse (bruises are visible on her buttocks in the movie). Bone then tells Anney that she will never live in the same house with Glen again. Bone says that she loves Anney and will forgive her if she decides to go back to Glen, but she remains firm that she will never live with him again. Anney vows not to go back to Glen unless Bone comes with her.

When Glen discovers this, he attacks Bone at her Aunt Alma's house, breaking her arm and raping her on the bedroom floor. Anney walks in on the assault and fights him off. Glen follows the two out to the car, with his pants around his knees, begging Anney to kill him rather than abandon him. To Bone's disgust and amazement, Anney ends up crying and throwing her arms around Glen. Anney then leaves with Glen.

Bone's Aunt Raylene takes her to the hospital and takes custody of her. While Bone is recuperating at Raylene's house, Anney shows up with a new birth certificate for Bone, one without "illegitimate" stamped at the bottom. She begs Bone's forgiveness, and leaves without saying where she is going.

Reviews

• In the July 5, 1992, edition of The New York Times Book Review, George Garrett said the book "in no way seems to be a patchwork of short stories linked together. Everything, each part, belongs only to the novel" and "close to flawless". He compared it to J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's novel To Kill a Mockingbird, writing, "Special qualities of her style include a perfect ear for speech and its natural rhythms; an unassertive, cumulative lyricism; an intensely imagined and presented sensory world, with all five senses working together; and, above all, again and again a language for the direct articulation of deep and complex feelings."
• K. K. Roeder in the April 1991 publication of San Francisco Review of Books states that Allison: "relates the difficulty of Bone's struggles with intensity, humor, and hard-wrought rejection of self-pity, rendering Bastard a rare achievement among works of fiction dealing with abused children."

See also

• Illegitimacy in fiction