dorothy allison two or three things i know for sure

The art of flirting is an art of indirection. Women talk about sex in such strange ways-carefully, obliquely, cautiously, almost shamefully. “Takes a damn long time to learn that, don’t it?” Wanda nodded but didn’t look at me, just sat there twisting the ring on her middle finger and staring into the parking lot across the street. Took me a long time to grow up and stop falling in love with women who would treat me bad.” I said it as if it were accomplished, as if I were not at that moment in love with yet another hard-eyed bitter woman. She treated me just about like he treated you. She was like that boy you wanted to marry. “The woman love you back?” Wanda asked me. Sex was dangerous enough, and our family was proof that love was a disaster waiting to happen. I reminded myself that there were just some things we never had talked about before, like sex, money, and broken bones. “Well,” she drawled, and looked away as if that would help her not to laugh, “that’ll do it, I suppose. Her mouth quirked, one side twitching as if she wanted to grin but didn’t dare. “I fell in love with a woman,” I said, matching her in tone and attitude. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, steeped in the hard-won wisdom of experience, expresses the strength of her unique vision with beauty and eloquence.I looked into her deceptively clear brown eyes and considered the question. As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest.

With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse.

Illustrated with photographs from the author's personal collection, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure tells the story of the Gibson women - sisters, cousins, daughters, and aunts - and the men who loved them, often abused them, and, nonetheless, shared their destinies. Now, in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, she takes a probing look at her family's history to give us a lyrical, complex memoir that explores how the gossip of one generation can become legends for the next. Bastard Out of Carolina, nominated for the 1992 National Book Award for fiction, introduced Dorothy Allison as one of the most passionate and gifted writers of her generation.

Dorothy allison two or three things i know for sure