Roberto Benevides Benevides من عند نيويورك من عند نيويورك

After finding an old typewriter in the barn, the cows begin writing notes to Farmer Brown. Their demand? Electric blankets. Probably the cutest strike book I've read. Great watercolor illustrations. The kindergartens liked it, although not everyone got the concept of electric blankets. Clickety clack indeed.

Bastard Out of Carolina is one of those books about which all of the hooplah surrounding it really baffles me. Allison basically plagiarizes herself by, instead of expanding what was a quite good short story she wrote and published in High Risk: An Anthology of Forbidden Writings, simply cutting and pasting sections of it throughout the book (I actually went through it and identified the sections because I could scarcely believe a serious author would do something so incredibly lazy). The final product was somehow a finalist for the National Book Award, and I think that had much more to do with the content than with the artistic merit. The book was published during a time when “empowerment novels,” written in a style similar to confessional memoirs, dealing with the taboo subjects of gay identify and childhood sexual abuse were enjoying a minor vogue, and I am convinced that a book written at the same level of artistry, but about different topics would have garnered little respect or notice. It is unfortunate, as the novel starts extremely strongly, with the story of Bone’s mother, Bone’s birth, and her early life tight, elicitous, and strong, but then, as Allison just starts plunking in sections of her previously published short story, writing around stock, clichéd characters (the strong, independent—gasp!—lesbian aunt figure) which you can see coming from a mile away, and relying on moralized speechifying about tolerance, accepting oneself, etc, it simply unravels, and the reader finds that it has no center. The bummer here is that if Allison had proceeded with patience and discipline, with this as a decent first or second draft, this could have been a soulful and affecting novel more powerful than the resulting convincing but two-dimensional screed.