Let Me Tell You a Story

In a book about her premature journey into adulthood, Dorothy Allison vents her frustrations and disturbed thoughts in order to share her pain and find closure by writing this book. On a personal level, Allison needed to release her anger to the world. She was physically and sexually abused up to her teen years and degraded by her family in a desolate part of Greenville. All of her ancestors, men and women were laborers with calloused hands and tired bodies. Her mother, grandmother, aunts, etc… were just as everyone expected them to be: homely, tired, broken mothers. It was as if they were born defeated with no hope of escaping the life they inherited. It is almost hard to believe that Allison left and avoided her doomed fate. Other than that, she publicized her story knowing that there are other broken women that can relate to her experiences. At one point in the book she even says, “…to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the sure way to touch the heart and change the world.” She grew up to become a feminist activist in any way she could from enrolling into an all male karate class to just dressing and acting differently. Although she is an activist for women’s rights, she is a lesbian because she fell in love with a woman (which she tells her sister on page 53) which is one of her many abilities to find and express herself realistically. She says, “I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.” When most people hear feminist lesbian, they think of a butch, man-hating woman but that is not Allison. She worked for women’s rights while avoiding her family’s failures and cruel stereotypes by experiencing and finding the world. Allison loves to tell stories and, “I can tell you anything. All you have to believe is the truth.”