Bastard Out of Mississippi...I mean Carolina, Chapter One

Okay...as if Dorothy Allison's title didn't excite me enough...I was not prepared to fall in love with a new text this semester. Let's get one thing straight: I don't throw the word "love" around like the liberal, free spirit, tree hugging self that I am! We all have a weakness, and the more something tugs at the core of who we are, the harder is it to resist falling. Why can't this happen with men rather than books? Oh well, within the latter is where I rustle my most pleasure!

Ruth Anne is Michaela Jester...but Ruth probably has breasts. What has gotten in to me today I'll never know :)

Let's lis the parallels between the narrator and me, shall we?

I was named by my oldest aunt. My momma didn't stress out about my middle name. As long as it was fluid with Michaela, she didn't mind letting my aunt live vicariously through me by dubbing me "Danielle."

Like Ruth, I was raised with a handful of tight-knit aunts, uncles, and cousins. Ruth does have a sister, but she runs with the adults. As an only child who's mamma couldn't afford preschool, I bonded with and learned from the adults who were key in my life before I even knew that other children existed outside of the Discovery Channel.

My mom wasn't sixteen when she became pregnant, but a twenty year old girl is still a child in my opinion.

My father's name is absent from my birth certificate, mainly because my mom didn't think he deserved to be on it. Hmmm...similarities between Anne and Dee? Perhaps. "and there I was-certified an air force brat bastard by the state of Mississippi." However, neither my mother nor I have actually felt like I am illegitimate or that one of us should be walking around Hester Primm style with a big letter A on the breast.

However, I think my mom may have been defensive for my sake in regard to what other people would wisper or scream about her having a child out of wedlock. If she did she didn't talk about it in front of me. A couple of times, though, I heard a conversation between her and her parents that was similar to the bickering between Granny and Anne.

My mom was also a hard working woman (and still is!) As a young girl I remember her taking on three jobs just so I could have the best of what she could offer.

My mom has also been married more than once.

"Family is family, but even love can't keep people from eating at eachother. Mama's pride, Granny's resentment that there should even be anything to consider shameful, my aunts' fear and bitter humor, my uncles' hard mouthed contempt for anything that could not be handled with a shotgun or a two-by-four- all combined to grow my mama up fast and painfully." This family is a carbon copy of my own.

My uncles also have a gift for charming any creature.