Bastard Out of Carolina

Greenville County, South Carolina, is a lush place of black walnut trees and weeping willows, of sweet tea served on shaded porches. It is also home to the Boatwright family – rough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other’s trucks, and indomitable women who marry young and age all too quickly. At the heart of this memorable family – and of this astonishing novel – is Ruth Anne Boatwright, called Bone by her family, a South Carolina bastard with an annotated birth certificate to tell the tale.

Bone knows what Greenville County thinks os her family, and when she’s not defending them passionately, she has to agree: Boatwrights are drunks and thieves, and she’d like nothing more than to escape the life they would make for her. Observing everything with a mercifully keen eye, Bone sees the legacy of poverty and futility that marks her family’s place in this small southern town – the fierce pride that erupts in rage and violence; the women who ward off loneliness by having more children; the desperation of itinerant souls who scarcely dare to dream of a better life.

Bone dreams. She dreams of becoming a gospel singer (despite the fact that she can barely carry a tune), or of living a life out of one of the books she steals from the local library. She dreams of a life not only beyond Greenville but also away from Daddy Glen, the stepfather whose tenderness quickly gives way to a sly, meanspirited jealously that will test the loyalty of her mother, Anney. The edges of this family triangle are sharp enough to draw blood: Glen calls Bone “cold as death, mean as a snake, and twice as twisty,” yet Anney needs Glen “like a strong woman needs meat between her teeth.” At first infinitely gentle with Bone, Daddy Glen becomes steadily colder and more furious – until their final, harrowing encounter, from which there can be no turning back.

Written in a mesmerizing voice that mingles the languid rhythms of country music with raw, unsparing descriptions of emotional and physical violence, Bastard out of Carolina marks the emergence of an extraordinarily gifted writer.