English Crticts

Literary criticism: A Good Thing?

INTRODUCTION

Allison is a highly regarded feminist writer who has garnered a large amount of mainstream appreciation. An incest survivor and self-labeled “lesbian-feminist”, Allison heavily incorporates many and touching events from her life into her work. Best known for her moderately autobiographical novel Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), Allison's work has earned widespread praise for its realism, objectiveness, vivid and multi-faceted characterizations, and laconic prose.

Biographical Information

Allison was born on April 11, 1949, in Greenville, South Carolina, to Ruth Gibson Allison, a fifteen-year-old unwed waitress. Allison's father disappeared before she was born. Four years later, her mother remarried and when Allison was six, her stepfather began to physically and sexually abuse her. The abuse lasted for several years before Allison was able to tell a relative about her situation. The relative informed Allison's mother, who stopped the abuse, but chose not to separate the family from the stepfather. Allison was the first person in her family to receive a high school diploma, and in 1968, she earned a National Merit Scholarship. She left home to attend Florida Presbyterian College (now Eckerd College) in St. Petersburg, Florida, where she received her B.A. in 1971. She became active in the feminist movement and edited and wrote for publications that championed gay rights and women's rights. Allison moved into a lesbian collective in Washington, D.C., but found her views conflicted with those of other lesbians, so in 1974, she moved to New York. While there, she received her M.A. in anthropology from the New School for Social Research. Allison's first two publications, The Women Who Hate Me (1983), a book of poetry, and Trash (1988), a short-story collection, were highly praised—Trash earned two Lambda Literary Awards—but did not receive widespread attention. In 1992, Allison published her first novel, Bastard Out...