Content Warning: This Key Figures section includes references to the sexual assault of children and physical violence.

Dorothy Allison (b. 1949) is a writer whose work is an important contribution to working-class, queer, and Southern literature. In the memoir, Allison represents her evolution from a terrified child who survived sexual and physical abuse to a woman who has become a confident storyteller.

Allison’s account of her early life depicts it as traumatic and poverty-stricken. She recounts sexual abuse that left her with severe physical and psychological wounds, which took decades to address in any meaningful way. As an adolescent and teen, Allison was convinced that her desire for girls and women meant that something was fundamentally wrong about her. The poverty of her life in Greenville, South Carolina, and in Florida left her with an awareness of the stigma of being “trash, lowlife, and scum” (1). As an adult, she still carries that stigma with her. She notes, “Behind my carefully buttoned collar is my nakedness, the struggle to find clean clothes, food, meaning, money” (39). That working-class, survivor consciousness is a fundamental part of Allison as a writer, however.

In the present moment of the memoir, Allison has evolved beyond that fearful beginning.