Product Description
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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Ten essential stories of the "bad poor", with five more specialized stories of lesbianism
Here is how Dorothy Allison introduces herself in TRASH:

"The central fact of my life is that I was born in 1949 in Greenville, South Carolina, the bastard daughter of a white woman from a desperately poor family, a girl who had left the seventh grade the year before, worked as a waitress, and was just a month past fifteen when she birthed me.That fact, the inescapable impact of being born in a condition of poverty that this society finds shameful, contemptible, and somehow oddly deserved, has had dominion over me * * *."

The literate, well-heeled portion of our society that runs mainstream media tends to ignore the poor, and when forced to acknowledge their existence it often prefers to romanticize or mythologize them as the sturdy, stoic, hard-working backbone of America.That wasn't Dorothy Allison's folks."We were the bad poor.We were men who drank and couldn't keep a job; women, invariably pregnant before marriage, who quickly became worn, fat, and old from working too many hours and bearing too many children; and children with runny noses, watery eyes, and wrong attitudes."Her people were trash.

Originally published in 1988, TRASH is a collection of 15 powerful stories of life as experienced by Dorothy Allison.Judging from this book alone (I know very little about Allison from beyond the covers of the book), the stories must have a high quotient of autobiography.

In ten of the stories, the "bad poor" are front and center, in discomfiting bluntness and detail.Allison limns the world of textile mills, waitressing, belt-wielding (and much worse) step-fathers, fishing camps, gospel-singing,shoplifting, male lust, and cheap alcohol delivered in a myriad of ways.It is just as much America as 50th floor corner offices, ivy-covered college campuses, health clubs, and amber waves of grain.

Exacerbating her pariah-hood, Allison is lesbian.In five of the stories in this collection, it is lesbianism that is front and center, including some very graphic sex scenes.To me, those stories are misplaced.If TRASH had been presented as a memoir I would feel differently, but it is a collection of stories entitled "Trash" and billed as a stark portrayal of Southern poverty.The lesbianism, though very much a part of Allison's life, is not necessarily part of the existence of the bad poor and its presence in this collection distracts from the depiction of the bad poor.No doubt I am somewhat influenced by the fact that I am repulsed by the scenes of lesbian sex - just as I am repulsed or annoyed by scenes of male homosexual or male/female sex.(I have never bought or browsed through any collection of overtly sexual or erotic stories; sex, like prayer, is too personal to experience vicariously.)I think the lesbian stories would be more effective portrayals (at least for non-lesbians) of the social challenges of lesbianhood without the raw sex, but even so I believe they should not have been included in a collection of stories about trash.

Ultimately, TRASH is about surviving and struggling to maintain some dignity, some sense of self-worth.For Allison, both anger and humor have been essential in doing so.The stories are well-written, if not brilliantly so.Ten of them are well worth reading by everyone in this country.Indeed, if the book contained only those ten stories I would give it five stars.

Dysfunctional family life
That Dorothy Allisons has had a horrible childhood can come as no surprise if you have read her Bastard out of Carolina. Trash is about both her childhood and her adult life. Trash is a collection of short stories and poems, and some of the short stories are very hard core.
Allison grew up way out in the sticks in Southern USA, where thrashings, violence, drinking, and incest were part of saily life in her large, white-trash family. Despite all this, her dysfunctional family stuck together in a bizarre way and perhaps there was even love between the some of the family members.

As a young grown up Dorothy Allison goes far, far away and manages to get into college and breaks her social heritage. At university she comes out of the closet, and some of the short stories are about her life out of the closet in USA in the 1970's.
The short stories can stand alone, but are best if all of them are read. Like I said, it is pretty hard core reading and some of the short stories are most definitely not for weak souls.

Allison's style is a little 70's-ish and her poems were not my cup of tea. But Trash is still a strong book I want to read again at some point.

Excellent Shipping - Book in excellent condition.
I was very pleased with this book - the packaging, the timeliness of the shipper and the condition of the book.From one Southern belle to another, Dorothy Allison rocks the Mason Dixon Line!A must read.

unstoppable
In the shadows of society lie the ugly truth of what many must overcome just to survive. Set in, then rural South, this book moves you through the landscape of poverty, sadness, and grave dysfunction. When education is absent and substance abuse prevalent, unthinkable tragedy can occur. But the will of a girl to survive in spite of her lack of resources is heartbreaking, but the encouragement of at least one person in her life helps her overcome adversity. Written with detail to the usually inviisible details of life, Trash draws you in & holds you until the end. Even then the book haunted me with sadness for what some children have faced. While it is a novel, it closely aligns with real life events.

Winner of two Lambda Literary Awards
Powerful and not to be missed.This is a collection of autobiographical narratives, essays, and performance pieces that you will never (and should never) forget.

The author Tee A. Corinne in her book `Lovers: love and sex stories' says "Dorothy Allison crafts from her own life powerful erotic passages that defy circumspect parameters..."

This was the most intense reading I have done in a long time.This should be recommended reading in all colleges and universities.

Not to be missed other titles from the author are - Bastard Out of Carolina, Skin, and The Women Who Hate Me.More information can be found at he author's web page.

If you need to feel a whole lot better about how the author triumphed over her horrendous childhood she and her family of choice are profiled in the book - Love Makes a Family: Portraits of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Parents and Their Families by Peggy Gillespie, Kath Weston, Gigi Kaeser, and April Martin (Paperback - May 1999).
... Read more

Product Description
A fantastic collection of essays, autobiographical narratives,and performance pieces, including updated versions of earliergroundbreaking material with provocative new work by the lifelongfeminist activist, controversial sex radical, and Southern expatriatewriter with an attitude who brought us Bastard Out of Carolina, Trash,and The Women Who Hate Me.Funny, passionate, and compelling prose onwhat it means to be queer and happy about it in a world that is stillarguing about what it means to be queer. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Thought provoking sociological examination
I read skin for a sociology class focusing on women's issues and this one is quality.

Allison really makes you think about how race, sex, and class relate and are interwoven together. If you're looking for a book to help you on your journey toward empowerment take a look.

Powerful and not to be missed

Noted as "extraordinary" by the author Tee A. Corinne in her book `Courting Pleasure' and as `...exquisite, memorable erotic work...".

This was the most intense reading I have done in a long time.This should be recommended reading in all colleges and universities.

Tremendous titles from the author are - Bastard Out of Carolina, Trash, and The Women Who Hate Me.More information can be found at the author's web page dorothyallison dot net

From the back of the book - A compelling collection of essays, autobiographical narratives, and performance pieces combines updated versions of earlier groundbreaking material with provocative new work.The author probes her experience of being a lifelong feminist activist, controversial sex radical, and a Southern expatriate writer with an attitude.. With humor, passion and enormous conviction, she addresses what it means to be queer and happy about it in a world that is still arguing about what it means to be queer.

Fabulous!
"Skin" is a book of essays by the amazingly talented writer and activist, Dorothy Allison. I remember reading [...] Out of Carolina many years ago and thinking I might not get through it because of its gruesome and hideous portrayal of a poverty-stricken, incestuous family living in the South. Turns out that book was Allison's fictionalized account of her childhood. Skin, however, is a finely crafted series of essays with titles ranging from "Gun Crazy" to "The Theory and Practice of the Strap-on Dildo" to "Believing in Literature". She likes to talk about everything people aren't supposed to talk about, including masturbating to science fiction novels, the pain of catching a venereal disease from her stepfather when she was a child (a disease that went untreated, rendering her sterile), the thrill of S & M, butch/femme strap-on sex, and much more just as juicy. Allison's style is fearlessly intimate and unashamed. Her long struggle to escape poverty and find a voice is evident in every page, and in every page her voice is beautiful, loud, and resiliant.

Essays on class, racism, sexuality, and literature
The extraordinary Dorothy Allison can write fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and essays. Skin is her contribution to the essay genre, a collection of two dozen bits of astute rambling across a crazy quilt of subjects stitched together by the fierce honesty her readers have come to expect from all of her writing. Coming from a poor white trash family in South Carolina, she traveled beyond her origins thanks to a rampant intelligence that nothing could dull. A feminist before the word was invented, Allison is also a proud card-carrying lesbian, a writer, mentor, teacher, lecturer, and a woman who is always generous to other writers. Skin deals more explicitly and in greater depth with erotica and sexuality than her other works, so readers would do well to be forewarned. But if you're a Dorothy Allison fan, this is NOT a book to be missed.

A book about SEX!
An opportunity to get thinking about a few "difficult" subjects, while enjoying a few refreshing lines of thought as well as a no-nonense yet witty style.Being a woman, gay or poor not a requisite, although itmight help. If you're neither of the three, buy the book anyway, you mightlearn something (I did). ... Read more

Product Description
An autobiographical work adapted from a performance piece explores such topics love and loss, beauty and terror, and the intricacies of family love and hatred, while illuminating the harsh world of rural poverty in the South. Reprint. NYT. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (27)

For Certain!
Another breathtaking release by Dorothy Allison!! A fantastic addition to any personal library, hurry up and order!LLFoster

lovely photographs
very emotional, with beautiful family pictures, and moving short descriptions of characters, scenes of everyday life.

the situation is all very sad, beginning with the funeral of the mother.

it's not a novel or short story... just memories, without much linearity.

some pages are hard to read: plain cruelty of the world.

but I loved it.

Each of these could be a memoir all its own
I had picked up this book (at least) once before, and really didn't think much of it. I would only get about 8 or 9 pages into it and I would put it down. I started it again a few days ago and this time I kept reading. I read it all (it took me a few days to get through it) but I'm very glad I gave it another chance. Dorothy really has a story to tell.

Her writing style encourages me to pick up a pencil and pad of paper and begin writing my own "Two or three thing I know for sure"

Thank you Dorothy for getting me started on my own memoir!

Spare and evocative book
This is a quick read, but packs a lot of power. The author isn't afraid to lay her life out for you, and all her emotions, past and present. Its doubly touching to note, this book was originally an oral presentation she wrote.

It's never the same thing
Dorothy Allison's Aunt Dot said she only new two or three things for sure and added, "Of course,they are never the same things." This slim volume, a family history memoir, celebrates the way that women know and affirms that what women know is different from what men know. Allison not only tells an engaging story, she tells her story with clear compassion for all concerned. That doesn't mean she hedges around about the truth. It means that one of the things she knows for sure is that "if we are not beautiful to each other, then we cannot know beauty in any form." Compassion goes along with being beautiful to one another. This book is both honest and forgiving. and as such reminds us to look with an open heart on our life circumstances. Don't compound the hurt or the suffering with hate suggests Allisonin a mere 94 pages. I suspect most people will want to read this book more than once. I pull it out when when I feel my heart closing and each time, the thing I come to know is never the same thing. ... Read more

Product Description
Ruth Anne "Bone" Boatwright, an illegitimate young girl, dreams of escaping her Greenville County, South Carolina, home, her notorious, hard-living family, and the unwanted attentions of her abusive stepfather, Daddy Glen. A first novel. Reprint. National Book Award finalist. NYT. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (166)

AMAZING BOOK
I read this book for my college women's literature class, and I loved it. This is a fictional book, but it is based off the author's actual childhood. I could not put this book down once I started reading it.

wonderful
This is a hauntingly captivating tale that is hard to read but impossible to put down.Bone is an unforgettable character based largely on the author's own life.Bone's "white trash" family IS trashy but at the same time there is often an underlying love and support among its members. Still, the final betrayal of Bone by her mother is unforgivable and an outrage.I found this to be a wonderful book well worth the time to read.

Brought Back Very Old Memories
I heard Ms. Allison speak on South Carolina Public Radio during the Christmas break.After hearing her, I thought I would read her novel set in Greenville, SC.I am about the same age as she, and I also grew up in Greenville, SC.I was truly intrigued by her story and the characters in it.I know these characters.I and my whole family worked in the JP Stevens "cotton mills" at one time or another; my father for more than 40 years.I worked with and lived around these folks in and around the mill villages on the outskirts of Greenville, until my family finally moved out to a little house on the "White Horse Road" that she speaks of often in the book.

My only complaint, besides the very sad ending, was that some of the facts about Greenville were not correct.I know that this is a work of fiction and unless you lived there in the 50's and 60's, it wouldn't matter.It does seem, however, that if the writer was to emphasize the fact that the story was in Greenville so strongly, that she would use accurate landmark names.

Still, I enjoyed this book greatly.I highly recommend it, and I look forward to reading more of her work.

Remarkable book
I read this book a while back, and it's a testimony to the realism of the story that I couldn't recall if this was a novel or a biography.Bone is truly an unforgettable character, searingly broken and misused, yet brimming with a courage few of us have known. It is difficult to find a fault in this book. It is honest, it is powerful, it is original, it is even suspenseful.

This is a book you should read because it is not only worth reading, but because it should make you a better human being.

Definite Page Turner
I could not put this book down!Dorothy Allison does such a great job of putting this novel together and keeping you wanting to find out what's next.When I was done with the book I was still itching to know what happened with the characters...I even googled Dorothy Allison to see if I could find more info.It's a must-read for anyone who is interested in something new & different.It is definitely not for the very reserved & conservative unless you're willing to open your mind a bit as she uses some very "out there" themes. ... Read more

Product Description
When Delia Byrd packs up her old Datsun and her daughter Cissy and gets on the Santa Monica Freeway heading south and east, she is leaving everything she has known for ten years: the tinsel glitter of the rock 'n' roll world; her dreams of singing and songwriting; and a life lived on credit cards and whiskey with a man who made promises he couldn't keep. Delia Byrd is going back to Cayro, Georgia, to reclaim her life--and the two daughters she left behind... Told in the incantatory voice of one of America's most eloquent storytellers, Cavedweller is a sweeping novel of the human spirit, the lost and hidden recesses of the heart, and the place where violence and redemption intersect.Amazon.com Review
"Death changes everything." So begins DorothyAllison's sprawling, ambitious, and deeply satisfying second novel,Cavedweller. For Delia Byrd, Randall Pritchard's death in amotorcycle accident launches a journey of several thousand miles andalmost two decades, a rebirth of sorts that's also a return to herroots. Years before, the handsome but untrustworthy rock star Randallhelped Delia flee an abusive husband; Delia escapes physical dangerbut leaves her two small children behind. In California, her abandoneddaughters haunt her dreams and preoccupy her waking hours, even as shesings in Randall's band and gives birth to another daughter,Cissy. But when Randall is killed in a motorcycle accident, Deliapacks rebellious Cissy into a broken-down Datsun, bound for Cayro,Georgia, and the one thing that suddenly matters more than anythingelse: her abandoned children and the chance to be a mother to themonce again.

Cayro's poverty is emotional as well as material; thetown is a hard place, full of hard people. To them, Delia will alwaysbe "that bitch" who abandoned her babies, "thathippie" living a life of sin. Nonetheless, Delia forges a cruelbargain with her former husband: in exchange for Delia's agreeing tocare for him as he dies, he gives her a chance to reclaim herdaughters. Like Bastardout of Carolina, Allison's acclaimed debut novel,Cavedweller is a chronicle of rage, strength, andsurvival. Here, however, Allison is equally concerned with theredemptive power of love and forgiveness, and a novel that began withdeath ends on an unexpectedly sanguine note: "'Yes, it's time forsome new songs.'" There are no victims in Dorothy Allison's work;Delia triumphs through sheer force of will, bringing her familytogether despite the contempt of almost everyone around her.

Thenovel has its flaws--including occasionally flat-footed prose--but itis in the end compulsively readable, and it's populated by some of themost memorable characters in recent fiction: tough, prickly, flawed,and deeply human, Delia and Cissy are literary creations of the firstrank. In describing the complicated emotions that bind and dividethem, Allison demonstrates a profoundly unsentimental understanding ofthe way the human heart works. Cavedweller is the work of amature artist, her best fiction to date. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (66)

Pretty Good
I found this book to be the story of a dysfunctional family of strong women who manage to function in spite of themselves. I was struck by the thought that these women, if seen sitting in the coffee shop or the beauty shop, would look like an ordinary group of redneck women with probably not much of interest going on in their lives.Wrong!The book is in need of some editing to cut down on a huge bunch of words adding nothing to the story, but otherwise is well-written.

Powerful and emotionally riveting
"Cavedweller" is among a number of contemporary novels that effectively incorporate rock music as a major theme. It makes sense to do it, given the importance that rock music has in contemporary life. But few novels do it as subtlely as Cavedweller. The interesting thing is that rock is not the primary force in the book -- at least on the surface -- but it has been the salvation for Delia, the main character. And the book would lack an underlying logic without it.

Delia escaped from a bad marriage to an abusive husband when she jumped aboard a traveling band's bus, thus abandoning her young children in her hometown of Cayro, Georgia. Delia became the lead singer in the band, Mud Dog, and had a child by its lead singer, Randall.Fronting Mud Dog was the thing that Delia did best in her life. Even though the novel begins with her having put Mud Dog and the rock-n-roll life behind her, it clearly gave her a confidence and strength that helped to see her through the challenges she faced in rebuilding her life. It also gave her an aura of fame that awed and intimidated the people of Cayro when Delia returns to the town more than a decade later, with her third daughter (child of the Mud Dog's lead singer) in tow.

Delia's decade-plus in California was eventful: Mud Dog had its heyday and then broke apart; she left Randall; and then he died in a motorcycle accident. That accident was the spur for a recently sober Delia to take her young daughter Cissy back to Cayro and to try to make amends. Delia receives a frosty reception from a town of citizens who mostly think of her as a bad wife and mother, and who have sympathy for her husband Clint (who never granted a divorce), who's dying of cancer. Gradually, Delia rebuilds her life through a series of penances -- to Clint, to the daughters she abandoned, and so on.

The book is powerful because Delia maintains her strength and dignity, despite her many weaknesses and mistakes. She doesn't give in. Everything she agrees to do, she does on her own terms, such as caring for the dying Clint and raising her three daughters. She accepts help when she really needs it, but she is also not going to apologize for things that were not mistakes. And she's not going to put on a good public face (i.e., pretending to be religious) unless it's true. In the end, her success is far from complete, but it's a real success, not a fake.

Among the memorable things about this book are Delia's two best friends: Rosemary, a black woman with whom Delia co-wrote songs in Los Angeles; and M.T., her best friend in Cayro, who has carved out a life as the town's most alluring woman. Each demonstrate versions of what I call the "strong woman," a woman who impresses and intimidates everyone around them.

Delia's daughters are a bit cliched. Amanda is a church fanatic who marriages a pastor (and then starts to experiment with sin); Dede is a beautiful but crazy-dangerous blonde who falls for the boy next door; and Cissy is an uptight tomboy who will need to escape town to reach her potential.

Finally, the atmosphere in the book is often well-sketched, from Delia's hurtle across the country back to Cayro, to the church encounters early in the book, to caving expeditions by Cissy, to the warm and safety of Delia's hair salon.It's a rich portrayal of a small town, showing that there's actually far more going on than meets the eye.

"Cavedweller" is my first exposure to Dorothy Allison, and, based on the reviews I've seen online, it's not her best work. But if this is second in line, I'm really looking forward to reading more that she's produced.

A Mother Runs Off with a Rock Star and Leaves Her Children Behind
This book is poorly conceived.The plot is fragmented, the writing awkward, and the characterization is superficial and contrived.Overall, it was a big disappointment.

The novel is about a woman who leaves an abusive husband and her two daughters to run off with a rock star.The rock star dies and she returns to the small Georgia town she left in order to reconcile with her children.

I recommend reading Bastard out of Carolina: (Plume Essential Edition) by Allison instead of this.'Bastard Out of Carolina' is a fine book that is beautifully written.

Not impressed.
I am a first time reader of Dorothy Allison, and I was not at all impressed with this novel.I sort of struggled through it, forced myself to finish it.

The first thing I noticed was all the characters' personalities kind of melted together, the dialogue did not provide them with individual voices, poor character development. The girls as children spoke just the same as the adults - clearly not age appropriate language.
New characters continually appeared, which made me stumble. And so many important scenes of real ACTION were left out and just referred to! Just when I thought we were getting to the good stuff.

And lastly, the novel could be dirtier. 400+ pages and only allusions to sex? Please.

blah
Bought this on a clearance rack and can now see why it hadn't sold.The characters were unexciting, and the story dragged on and on.I read 4 books while having this one unfinished on my night stand.I've never read any of Allison's other novels, but after reading this one, I don't think I'll jump on the chance.Dede was the most interesting character, and even she couldn't keep me involved.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Dorothy Allison: A Psychic Story
Killers Curse Her.
Anguished Families Turn to Her.
Veteran Police Call Her Psychic Sleuth.

She is Dorothy Allison

the slight, tart-tongued New Jersey housewife possessed of mysterious gifts of seeing. Gifts she bestows on rich and poor alike, without fee, when they come to her with a plea that a loved one is missing.

Here - in an often shocking casebook - is Dorothy's personal story ... a brilliant record backed up by numerous affidavits from families and police, of a compassionate woman who has used her unique powers in more than one hundred baffling crimes of disappearances.
--- from book's back cover ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

great collection of southern tales
I immensely enjoyed Jim Grimsley's collect of short stories, Jesus is Sending You This Message.While some of the shorter, almost abstract stories left me scratching my head a bit since they read more like prose poems, the overall collection is worth checking out.

A couple of the standouts were stories that dabbled in a bit of science fiction.In one such story, a man describes his experience of having died - over and over again - only to have been brought back to life by a group of doctors trying to discover why their experiments worked on him but not on their other test subjects.In another, the narrator has found a way to create the most lifelike artificial little girl imaginable - and what he uses her for will leave you quite disturbed.

The title story, Jesus is Sending You This Message, is immediately relatable as it centers on something as normal and mundane as taking the train back and forth to work each day.If you've ever lived in a city and do this, you'll like how realistically Grimsley paints the experience.He's able to take an everyday experience and show the extraordinary potential lurking beneath the surface.

If you're a fan of Grimsley's early novel, Winter Birds, you'll enjoy his revisiting some of those characters in "Silver Bullet."Throughout these stories, Grimsley touches on some really human, sometimes dark, themes.He's a true talent, and his Southern flavor shines through in each tale.

New Dark Stories by Jim Grimsley
Jim Grimsley's latest book JESUS IS SENDING YOU THIS MESSAGE, with an introduction by Dorothy Allison, consists of sixteen short stories, most of them fully developed while a few are hardly more than vignettes. The truth in these dark stories-- of which the breadth of the subject matter is pretty amazing-- is not found on angels' wings. Mr. Grimsley does write about both child sexual and spousal abuse, as he has done previously, in the haunting "Silver Bullet" But in "Unbending Eye" he grapples with the ethical question of whether or not scientists have the right to revive someone from the dead and keep him as a virtual prisoner because their experiments "could be of benefit to billions of people." The narrator in "Wendy," in a story as macabre as Joyce Carol Oates' tale of a robot-like Emily Dickinson in "Wild Nights" creates a machine that is in essence an eight-year-old girl. The first line of "We Move In A Rigorous Line" says it all: "He sat in an airplane heading helplessly out to sea." An incapacitated pilot and his passenter, "some rich bigwig from an oil company," face certain death as their plane loses cabin pressure. In "New Jerusalem," Lomax, an artist who walks with crutches, dreams of taking a one-way trip to the moon, not in keeping with her fundamentalist mother's world view: "I don't know why she talks like that. I take her to church." Lomax takes quite a different trip, however, and meets a fate forewarned of by a strange woman named Estabelle who tells her: "The handwriting is on the wall."

The two best stories are "The Virtual Maiden" and "Jesus Is Sending You A Message" that are as good as anything else Mr. Grimsley has written, including DREAM BOY and WINTER BIRDS. In the first story two men living together hire a woman with Down syndrome to clean their cluttered, messy home. A gesture of kindness on the part of the younger man, who is more than twenty years younger than his lover, results in an unexpected complicated love triangle. The author writes beautifully and with tremendous insight about the human heart. The older narrator on his lover Randall: "The first morning we were ever together, when we had made love very sweetly and I understood how thoughtful he was, I already knew he would never love me very much, but that he would never love me any less than that." In "Jesus Is Sending You This Message," a near perfect short story set in Atlanta, the narrator, a white daily train rider, becomes obsessed and angry with an older well-dressed black woman who is compelled to testify in a loud voice on a daily commute of the imminent return of Jesus and the destruction of the wicked. The narrator, who attends a local Episcopal church, wonders if the testifier's Christ is more real than his.

Mr. Grimsley dedicates "New Jerusalem" to Flannery O'Connor, who would be pleased with that story and with "Jesus Is Sending You This Message" as well as several of the other stories included here. After all, it was she who opined that Southerners write about freaks so often because they can still recognize them. Mr. Grimsley obviously is the literary child of Ms. O'Connor.

Revelations
Grimsley, Jim. "Jesus is Sending You This Message: Stories", Alyson, 2008.

Revelations

Amos Lassen

I have always enjoyed reading Jim Grimsley and so when his new collection of short stories arrived, I cleared my schedule and sat down to read. These are very clever stories and sharp and powerful.
Grimsely explores the nature of how we exist and as I read I was held spellbound by the beauty of the language. Our world is a hard place to live in and is many times unforgiving. As Grimsley looks at the human soul, we see the limitations and boundaries that are placed on us. Using both elements of fantasy and science-fiction, Grimsley adds yet another layer to the fantastic.There are stories about the southern United States and there are all kinds of stories here. Grimsley does not limit himself to the gay experience but also writes about aging and romance with a lyric realism that is beautiful. These are stories about ordinary people like you and me and there are those who are already dead and those who are struggling with survival. There were times I felt as if I was reading poetry and not prose. The themes of compassion and love seem to govern the stories and the lack of compromise is amazing. Grimsely takes the role of a camera lens as he focuses and refocuses and always presents what he sees, adorned but powerful.


... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

The real truth about this book
This book is very personal to me. I was the one that was portrayed as candy in the book. I was 15 and caught up in a whirlwind of devastation for the family of Debra Sue and for what these men did to me. The things they said about Candy in this book were lies and defamation of character. I was raped by Ronald Henninger and molested by Richard Dodson for months before my mother who was married to Ronald Henninger, were able to escape the home of Richard Dodson. The so called Clairvoyant that solved this case is also a lie. It was January of the year after Debra was found missing that I went to the counselors of my school and told what happened to her. My mother had just told me in December just days before we got out of that house. I could not keep such a story and seeing the family in the newspapers waiting for her to come home. They had her stocking still hanging from the fireplace and the Christmas tree up on the front page. It was on the kitchen table when I came home from school. I was the one that waited for police to arrive after I told the counselor. I told everything about what happened to Debra and to me. I was an innocent young girl that survived their wrath and Debra did not have a chance. I am haunted by this tragedy till this day. I happened upon this book on Amazon this afternoon and it brought back so many horrible memories. There were more victims than Debra for these animals. My heart goes out to her family and always has. My mother and I would have been killed if we had not gotten out when we did. There is so much more to this story than this and someday I may write a book about it myself to clear the air. May Debra rest in peace. Thank God I did speak up and these animals are still in prison and will die there as they should. They can no longer hurt anyone else and I thank the Lord above.

Fast shipment,book as described.Thanks!
This is an old old story I had read a long time ago...didn't have much hope I could find it.But not only did I get to read this agonizing and fascinating book but would highly recommend to anyone living locally that may remember the crime, or loves to read crime drama.

Think it can't happen in your town...
I read this book in one sitting and it scared the hell out of me. I never thought I would see the towns of Chambersburg, Waynesboro and Greencastle in a nationally publized book but I did. You think it can't happen in your town...think again. The story of Debbie Sue Kline is one of heartbreak, cruelty and sadness. The pictures in the back also helped develop a more clear picture. Highly recommended book!

couldn't happen here
Living in the town in which these events happened makes this story even more gripping. Going to school with Debbie, knowing her family, and seeing the news headlines everyday, brings lifes fears closer to the small towns of America. If you think it can't happen in your town, think again. The writers were there on the scene everyday, which makes every word in this book, truer than true. Enjoy and stay safe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Going to Carolina!!
Dorothy Allison is an inspiration!!! For someone to take the dung in their life and use it as fertilizer for the world! That is a TRUE CHAMPION! Dorothy Allison, I adore you!LLFoster ... Read more

Product Description
This is a collection of essays examining the works of Dorothy Allison (1950-), one of the most original and influential contemporary American women writers working today. Allison is perhaps best-known as author of the acclaimed best- selling novels Bastard Out of Carolina, a National Book Award Finalist in 1992, and Caved weller (1998). Her numerous other works have included short story and essay collections, poetry, and an autobiography. The critical essays in this collection consider Allison's short stories and essays, as well as her novels, discussing themes such as trauma and violence, the body, literary and critical connections, and class, among others. As the first major collection of essays to focus solely on Allison's works, this study provides ground-breaking work on an important and interesting contemporary writer. Allison's works attract readers from a range of academic disciplines, and they have found a broad national public readership as well.Thus the audience for this work, like Allison's audience, is unusually diverse, comprising readers interested in a range of gender issues, autobiographical writing, trauma narratives, Southern writing, and lesbian and gay writing and issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Intense and beautiful
Terrific writing very accessible to the reader whose first or second choice in reading is not poetry.A wide range of emotions and subjects I thought several of the poems were lovely.

I bought this book because the author's books `Skin' and `Trash' are spotlighted in the anthologies `Courting Pleasure' and `Lovers: love and sex stories' by Tee A. Corinne. I enjoyed them both tremendously and sought out this book.

The 1983 edition is Illustrated by Laurie McLaughlin.

From the publisher's website - Razor sharp, angry, and full of passion, Dorothy Allison stands her ground and refuses to leave any of the hard stuff behind. Whether writing about her dirt-poor Southern childhood, its brutalities and its love, or her lesbian lust--her outlaw sexuality--her poetry is cheeky, touching, and on target as she speaks the truth to the women she loves.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Intense and beautiful
Terrific writing very accessible to the reader whose first or second choice in reading is not poetry.A wide range of emotions and subjects I thought several of the poems were lovely.

I bought this book because the author's books `Skin' and `Trash' are spotlighted in the anthologies `Courting Pleasure' and `Lovers: love and sex stories' by Tee A. Corinne. I enjoyed them both tremendously and sought out this book.

The 1983 edition is Illustrated by Laurie McLaughlin.

From the publisher's website - Razor sharp, angry, and full of passion, Dorothy Allison stands her ground and refuses to leave any of the hard stuff behind. Whether writing about her dirt-poor Southern childhood, its brutalities and its love, or her lesbian lust--her outlaw sexuality--her poetry is cheeky, touching, and on target as she speaks the truth to the women she loves.

amazing and beautiful
this book of poetry by southern writer dorothy allison is an amazing and personal narative of her life growing up poor and southern.it spans her childhood through her experineces as a lesbian feminist and as a femme lover of butch dykes.the imagery is rich, the stories heartfelt.this is a very accessable book of poetry with beautiful moments that everyone can relate to.buy this book. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (1)

A Great First Impression
During my first year of Graduate school towards earning my MFA I was asked if I had ever heard of Ida Appleboorg.I admitted that I had never heard of her and asked what she did.After a brief conversation ending with me writing down her name and promising I would look into her work I went to the university's library.They had a couple books and I spent hours pouring through them over and over until I knew I wanted to see more.

I ordered this book and have about worn it out.First it is a beautiful full color book with a beautiful format.It contains both installation and individual views of her work.I really was able to get a sense of the artist and how she paints.It is a beautiful book and a broad introduction to a great contemporary artist.What a role model for young female artists. ... Read more