Content Warning: The source text contains depictions of rape, sexual assault, domestic violence, and accidental death; it contains offensive, racist language (including use of the n-word.) This guide contains discussions of rape, sexual assault, domestic abuse, and violence.

Bone, whose given name is Ruth Anne, is from Greenville County, South Carolina. On the night she was born, her mother Anney was in a car accident along with Bone’s aunts Alma and Ruth and her uncle Travis. Anney did not regain consciousness during delivery. Bone was named by her aunt, after both the aunt (Ruth) and her mother (Anney.) Although no one in the family would admit it, Bone is sure that her uncle Travis had been drunk at the time of the crash. Because there was disagreement about her father’s name, and because he’d already left town, Bone’s birth certificate states that she is “illegitimate.”

Her mama, having always hated to be called “trash,” had been ashamed that the birth certificate said “illegitimate.” Anney had gone to the courthouse for a new certificate, and though she’d torn the bottom and claimed that the rip had been an accident, the clerk looked through the county records and issued her a second certificate that also listed Ruthe Anne as “illegitimate.