ReadOut

by Gregg Shapiro

VOICE OUT OF THE SOUTH

Dorothy Allison expands her award-winning story collection, Trash

Having only previously read two of Dorothy Allison's books (Bastard Out of Carolina and Two or Three Things I Know for Sure), I was grateful for the excuse to read her reissued and expanded short-story collection Trash when the opportunity arose for me to interview her. Originally published in 1988, it set the stage for Bastard Out of Carolina, reverberating with themes of poverty, the South, family, and queer sexuality. Opening with remarkable family-oriented pieces such as "River of Names" and "Gospel Song," the collection moves on, as the narrator does, to adult life and experiences, in stories such as "Steal Away," "Monkey Bites," and "Muscles of the Mind," establishing the narrator's sexual identity. "Compassion," the newest story in the book, succeeds in bringing all of the elements together, making this award-winning collection even more essential reading than it was the first time it was published.

OutSmart: At a time when publishers' backlists of titles by LGBT authors are being scaled down, what does it mean to you have your award-winning short-story collection, Trash, reissued?

Dorothy Allison: Pretty amazing, isn't it? [Laughs] I am very clear that they would not [re]issue it if they didn't think they could sell copies. Publishing is about money [laughs]. But then again it was about money when that was a small press [which first published the book]. You have to make enough money to keep the books out, and it's gotten more and more difficult to do that. I think my great regret is that the small presses that worked with so many of us are now gone. It has an enormous impact on our community and on our sense of ourselves and on our young writers.

Why did you feel it was necessary for you to write a new introduction to the collection?

They asked me to. But, also, I did feel it was necessary, because some of these stories are now 25 years old-at least one of them is-and most of the others were written in the early to mid-'80s. I wanted to go back and make sure that I was comfortable with publishing it. Also, I wanted to look at that time period. It's been interesting, because I've been going around with the book now [doing readings], and what I find is that I've hit all these very young lesbian and gay people who really don't know anything about the early women's movement or what the community was like at that time. When I read them some of the stories that are set in the late '70s or early '80s, they find it very exotic. Lesbian feminist collective living [laughs]. I can't find that exotic.

Right. It's your experience.

Yes, exactly. But I write a mix of lesbian community stories, love stories, love-gone-bad stories, and family stories. I find I still get mixed audiences. It's very interesting.

I'm glad that you mentioned the mix of stories in the collection. "Compassion," the new story in the book, looks at different levels of kindness and mercy, from commiseration with people to pity for animals. In a way, it succinctly sums up the collection. How long after the original publication of Trash was it written?

The story began in the early '90s. It actually began when my mother died in 1991. I found myself watching the people at her funeral, most of who intensely disliked each other, and they were occasionally capable of astonishing moments of grace. That's what I wanted to write about-this completely divided, broken family that can be astonishingly kind to each other, and not ever really change [laughs].

Did you always envision it being added on to the book?

I actually hoped to have two other stories, but I've been very slow. I'm working on a novel, and that's got most of my focus. I am a slow writer. I have to own up to that.

I appreciated the way that the book is laid out-the way the first four stories, which include "River of Names" and "Meanest Woman Ever Left Tennessee," lay the groundwork for the stories that follow. Were those first stories, in which family comes into play, written before the others?

I think one of the earliest stories is "I'm Working on My Charm," so no. It took me a long time to finish "River of Names." "River of Names" and "Lupus" were the two last stories I finished in the original collection.

Do you think that writing about family frees you up to write about sexuality or vice versa?

Oh, goodness, for me they're completely intertwined. I can't separate them out. I think that's true for a lot of lesbian and gay people. There's a Jewish gay man whose books I love . . .

Lev Raphael?

Yes, Raphael! He does a very similar thing. His family stories intertwine with his stories about being a sexual gay man. I don't see any way to separate those out. I have to say that my aunts and my mother were never too thrilled about hearing about my leather adventures, and I never expected them to be. [Laughs]

I'm glad that you mentioned their reactions to your work, because the stories in the book balance the subjects of family and life as a sexually active adult. In "Don't Tell Me You Don't Know," which is the book's centerpiece, those two worlds collide. It's one of the most powerful coming-out stories I've ever read.

That's an evil story. It was one of the stories in which I began to figure out how complicated the business of writing was-how you could get really snaky in your own mind. The story really is a coming-out story. It's two kinds of coming out. She's coming out both as a lesbian and that she's sterile as a result of the abuse she suffered as a child. I sent that story to my mother, not realizing that I hadn't told her that I was sterile. I had worked so hard to get used to the idea, I had simply convinced myself that she already knew. It wasn't until after the book was published and I got her response that I realized that you can't predict what your own mind is doing when you write a fiction that uses any of your real life. I didn't intend to hurt her or avenge myself on her the way the woman in the story is clearly doing. But that is clearly an element in my own mind.

Most of the men in the stories, a majority of whom are straight, aren't especially likable characters, which is why I enjoyed the way you portrayed Bruce, the gay male character in "Violence Against Women Begins at Home." Do you like creating gay male characters?

I do, actually. Especially surprising ones. Most of the gay men that I have been close to have been pretty surprising. [Laughs]

"A Lesbian Appetite," which is included in the collection, is one of your most anthologized stories.

It's all that food. Put food and sex together, and you'll sell.

How do you feel about that piece?

I love that story. Also, it was a way of writing about women that I knew. I included real references to food so that people will recognize themselves. The woman with the dill bread never got over the story. [Laughs]

That's the secret-never date a songwriter or a writer of any kind if you don't want to end up being the subject of a song or a story.

You'll recognize yourself, poor babies.

You mentioned that you have started working on your next novel.

Right now, it's called Gee, Who? It's a novel set in San Francisco about a young woman who loses her memory after what is believed to be a gay assault.

You and your partner have a son. What would you say if he came to you and told you that he wanted to be a writer?

[Laughs] I think that it would be karma in action. I think there's a possibility. God knows he's a storyteller.

Pop culture journalist Gregg Shapiro is also a published fiction writer and poet. He has a poem in the new collection, Sweet Jesus (Anthology Press).