This is the first book published by Dorothy Allison. It had a real impact among followers of America's literary life, and won her two Lambda Awards given to outstanding lesbian fiction. This book was one of the first exquisitely written explorations of sexual abuse told from an unflinching working-class perspective. Allison grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, the daughter of a single mother who worked as a waitress and cook. When she was five, her mother married, and her husband began to sexually abuse Allison, eventually infecting her with a serious, untreated, case of gonorrhea which destroyed her reproductive organs. Not only was Dorothy Allison the first of her family to graduate from high school, but she became a National Merit Scholar. While attending college in Florida and graduate school in New York City, she held a wide variety of jobs. And that is where she wrote this story collection. It wasn't until Dorothy Allison's first novel, Bastard Out of Carolina, was published that the wider world looked up and noticed the power of Dorothy Allison. For several years now she and her partner have lived in the Napa Valley for California, and she has continued to publish outstanding books. She is a delightful guest speaker who shares her opinions in a forthright working-class way that delights most in her audiences but can shock and dismay college administrators and other bastions of the status quo.
New York: Plume, a paperback edition, 2002, of a 1988 release. 219 pages. Trade paperback.