Bastard Out of Carolina Redux

I happened to run into a friend on my way to the bookstore yesterday, and she walked me to the shelf on which our texts for Literacy, Culture and the Teaching of Reading sat. She pulled the books one by one from the shelf and into a newly formed stack in my hands, and I glanced at each cover as it became part of the pile. My eyes lingered on one book, and one book only.

Trash, by Dorothy Allison.

The cover noted her other texts, including Bastard Out of Carolina. I may have groaned audibly, and I apologize to those who study and love literature. It’s not Allison’s fault.

When I was a teenager, I was a member of the Speech and Debate team. I competed in several categories, one of which was called OI – Oral Interpretation. We would stand with these little black binders and read prose and poetry pieces with dramatic effect and facial expression. I usually read Dorothy Parker stories (I was a sarcastic feminist in my teens, too), my teammates preferred the original Grimm fairy tales, and there was always a reading from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul.

But Bastard Out of Carolina held a special place in the black mini-binders of the girls from St. Joseph’s High School, Brooklyn. It seemed that whenever a St. Joe’s girl was in your OI room, you heard a terrible story of rape, incest, beatings, poverty and the struggle for survival. I hated the St. Joe’s girls because their pieces were all alike, they all involved a gruff Southern man and a shrill girl begging for mercy, I knew there was the potential for fake tears, snot and gasping for air. It seemed so over-the-top, condescending to victims of the many separate acts of violence that all managed to sneak their way into ten minutes of prose, and it all sounded so melodramatic in a silent classroom.

I also hated the St. Joe’s girls because they usually won. I hated Dorothy Allison for writing for those pieces.

So when we read “River of Names” in class last night, I felt like a teenage girl in her Sunday best, shrinking back into my seat and saying goodbye to a Speech and Debate trophy. I wasn’t surprised by the content, or the fact it was “horrible” and “fascinating” in its depth. I knew what was coming. I heard the St. Joe’s version of the gruff rapist and the crying female in my head before the rape and crying began.

This is what is called a prior reading experience. We all have our prejudices against, and relationship with, texts and topics that have nothing to do with the actual reading. There are topics, authors, and pictures in texts for which we have predetermined feelings. These have the potential to interfere with our reading.

With the advent of pre-reading in the New York City Department of Education, we’re beginning to explore texts before jumping right into them. We have the potential to talk these experience through, better understand ourselves before we let ourselves dilute the text, and prepare ourselves for the possible opening of wounds. Sometimes our previous experiences are much deeper than teenage resentment mingling with competitive spirit.

So, how did I do with “River of Names” when we read it in class? Pretty well, actually. I began to see it for its structure, which I never fully appreciated when hearing it read. Reading it for myself allowed me to focus on the intertwining of past and present, creating a haunting feeling that focusing only on the horribly, fascinating events could never convey. I was able to connect the text, not to the St. Joseph’s girl standing before me. It wasn’t “her piece.” It reverted back to its rightful author and was something to be experienced by anyone that read it.

Don’t think I suddenly want to start to the Dorothy Allison fan club, though. I still feel that the material can be too raw, and read melodramatically without understanding of the core of the cycle of violence, poverty and abuse. My relationships with my students, and the knowledge of their lives and stories, make these texts too real, and much less of the novelty they can become for the “fairy tale” reader. I’m far from the “fairy tale” reader.

I don’t enjoy reading these texts for the same reason I can’t watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. I know Special Victims; they have names and stories and they sit in my class. To have them read these pieces may be cathartic, may provide them with strength, may even give them a starting place to understand themselves and the world. However, these pieces may reinforce their cycles, prove that these cycles are normal, and hey, if other people went through them and survived to write bestsellers, maybe others will be ok too having never broken the cycle. The use of literature as a tool to expose the reader to a familiar, new world does not work with some of my readers.

I have new impressions, and many questions, that go beyond the St. Joseph’s girls now. I am reading at least five short stories from Trash this weekend (and possibly many more), with new prior experiences. I am also viewing the texts more critically with an eye for how they impact my practice. I am mindful of the fact that relevance is a great entry point, but sometimes, it hits too close to home.

I was able to glean more from the reading in light of understanding myself. Our students as readers will have to do the same.

Implications of My Reflections on Dorothy Allison on Teaching: readers approach text with prior experiences; teachers much equip students with the skills and tools necessary to evaluate their own experiences and their reading of the text; a safe place must be provided for self-reflection and evaluation of prior experiences and textual understanding; experiences I have a reader can be recognized as similar to the experiences my students have as readers.