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Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
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. 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.
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. With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse.
As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. 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.
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. With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse.
As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. 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.
94 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1995
149 people are currently reading
8104 people want to read
About the author
Dorothy Allison
79 books1,703 followersDorothy Earlene Allison was an American writer from South Carolina whose writing focused on class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. She was a self-identified lesbian femme. Allison won a number of awards for her writing, including several Lambda Literary Awards. In 2014, Allison was elected to membership in the Fellowship of Southern Writers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 469 reviews
November 27, 2014
A Quick Recommendation
This was a good Year of reading memoirs for me and it helped a great deal in recognizing the art that goes behind writing one. I regard such art to be strictly personal where memories both wispy and vivid try to capture life from a central and peripheral standpoint. Whether it’s about a son talking about her mother and leaving a margin worthy space to mention about himself, or the brilliant writer bemoaning the loss of an imperfectly beautiful yesterday, or the young man who welcomes life by encountering the reality of experience; every person who trust the power of words in order to transform abstract into something tangible, silence into pertinent sound and mistakes into lessons, offers an invaluable gift to the readers.
I am no longer a grown-up outraged child but a woman letting go of her outrage, showing what I know: that evil is a man who imagines the damage he does is not damage, that evil is the act of pretending that some things do not happen or leave no mark if they do, that evil is not what remains when healing becomes possible.
So if I have to suggest (quite emphatically) one such book for anyone and everyone to read then it’s surely going to be Two or Three Things I know for Sure. Dorothy Allison in her profoundly expressive and powerful memoir talks about her lost childhood and creating a loved version of self much against the doomed wishes and fatuous tradition of the world she came from:
...I thought it was like that story in the Bible, that incest is a coat of many colors, some of them not visible to the human eye, but so vibrant, so powerful, people looking at you wearing it see only the coat. I did not want to wear that coat, to be told what it meant, to be told how it had changed the flesh beneath it, to let myself be made over into my rapist’s creation. I will not wear that coat, not even if it is recut to a feminist pattern, a postmodern analysis.
Courageous, tragic and honest- the things she tells here are things one needs to hear.
This was a good Year of reading memoirs for me and it helped a great deal in recognizing the art that goes behind writing one. I regard such art to be strictly personal where memories both wispy and vivid try to capture life from a central and peripheral standpoint. Whether it’s about a son talking about her mother and leaving a margin worthy space to mention about himself, or the brilliant writer bemoaning the loss of an imperfectly beautiful yesterday, or the young man who welcomes life by encountering the reality of experience; every person who trust the power of words in order to transform abstract into something tangible, silence into pertinent sound and mistakes into lessons, offers an invaluable gift to the readers.
I am no longer a grown-up outraged child but a woman letting go of her outrage, showing what I know: that evil is a man who imagines the damage he does is not damage, that evil is the act of pretending that some things do not happen or leave no mark if they do, that evil is not what remains when healing becomes possible.
So if I have to suggest (quite emphatically) one such book for anyone and everyone to read then it’s surely going to be Two or Three Things I know for Sure. Dorothy Allison in her profoundly expressive and powerful memoir talks about her lost childhood and creating a loved version of self much against the doomed wishes and fatuous tradition of the world she came from:
...I thought it was like that story in the Bible, that incest is a coat of many colors, some of them not visible to the human eye, but so vibrant, so powerful, people looking at you wearing it see only the coat. I did not want to wear that coat, to be told what it meant, to be told how it had changed the flesh beneath it, to let myself be made over into my rapist’s creation. I will not wear that coat, not even if it is recut to a feminist pattern, a postmodern analysis.
Courageous, tragic and honest- the things she tells here are things one needs to hear.
December 31, 2014
This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. I was so blown away by Dorothy Allison's writing that it felt like she had lobbed a grenade into the room, exploding with beautiful and haunting language.
The memoir tells the story of Dorothy's family and her childhood in rural South Carolina. The title comes from something her Aunt Dot used to say: "Lord, girl, there's only two or three things I know for sure ... Only two or three things. That's right. Of course it's never the same things, and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be."
This is how the memoir begins:
"'Let me tell you a story,' I used to whisper to my sisters, hiding with them behind the red-dirt bean hills and row on row of strawberries. My sisters' faces were thin and sharp, with high cheekbones and restless eyes, like my mama's face, my aunt Dot's, my own. Peasants, that's what we are and always have been. Call us the lower orders, the great unwashed, the working class, the poor, proletariat, trash, lowlife and scum. I can make a story out of it, out of us. Make it pretty or sad, laughable or haunting. Dress it up with legend and aura and romance. 'Let me tell you a story,' I'd begin, and start another one. When we were small, I could catch my sisters the way they caught butterflies, capture their attention and almost make them believe that all I said was true."
Isn't that a fantastic opening? This memoir is slim, only 94 pages, but it was so powerful that I had to set the book down a few times to ponder it, or I would stop and reread a page to fully appreciate a lovely phrasing. While there is a lot of sadness in this book, especially when she writes about her mother or the abuse Dorothy suffered as a child, overall her voice was confident and inspiring. The book includes photographs of Dorothy and her family, and those black-and-white pictures added even more depth to the stories.
Throughout the memoir, Dorothy ends a section with something she's learned. These morals were always well-written, and I could imagine this piece being incredibly moving if performed live, with the repetition and the beats of those sayings. These were some of my favorites:
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that no one is as hard as my uncles had to pretend to be."
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form."
Besides being a good memoir about the American South, I also appreciated that it was about a writer finding herself, and how she tried to make peace with her unhappy past. I may only know two or three things, but one of them is that I cannot wait to read more of Dorothy Allison's books.
Favorite Quote
"Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different. Men eat themselves up believing they have to be the thing they have been made. Children go crazy. Really, even children go crazy, believing the shape of the life they must live is as small and mean and broken as they are told. Oh, I could tell you stories that would darken the sky and stop the blood. The stories I could tell no one would believe. I would have to pour blood on the floor to convince anyone that every word I say is true. And then? Whose blood would speak for me?"
The memoir tells the story of Dorothy's family and her childhood in rural South Carolina. The title comes from something her Aunt Dot used to say: "Lord, girl, there's only two or three things I know for sure ... Only two or three things. That's right. Of course it's never the same things, and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be."
This is how the memoir begins:
"'Let me tell you a story,' I used to whisper to my sisters, hiding with them behind the red-dirt bean hills and row on row of strawberries. My sisters' faces were thin and sharp, with high cheekbones and restless eyes, like my mama's face, my aunt Dot's, my own. Peasants, that's what we are and always have been. Call us the lower orders, the great unwashed, the working class, the poor, proletariat, trash, lowlife and scum. I can make a story out of it, out of us. Make it pretty or sad, laughable or haunting. Dress it up with legend and aura and romance. 'Let me tell you a story,' I'd begin, and start another one. When we were small, I could catch my sisters the way they caught butterflies, capture their attention and almost make them believe that all I said was true."
Isn't that a fantastic opening? This memoir is slim, only 94 pages, but it was so powerful that I had to set the book down a few times to ponder it, or I would stop and reread a page to fully appreciate a lovely phrasing. While there is a lot of sadness in this book, especially when she writes about her mother or the abuse Dorothy suffered as a child, overall her voice was confident and inspiring. The book includes photographs of Dorothy and her family, and those black-and-white pictures added even more depth to the stories.
Throughout the memoir, Dorothy ends a section with something she's learned. These morals were always well-written, and I could imagine this piece being incredibly moving if performed live, with the repetition and the beats of those sayings. These were some of my favorites:
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that no one is as hard as my uncles had to pretend to be."
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form."
Besides being a good memoir about the American South, I also appreciated that it was about a writer finding herself, and how she tried to make peace with her unhappy past. I may only know two or three things, but one of them is that I cannot wait to read more of Dorothy Allison's books.
Favorite Quote
"Women lose their lives not knowing they can do something different. Men eat themselves up believing they have to be the thing they have been made. Children go crazy. Really, even children go crazy, believing the shape of the life they must live is as small and mean and broken as they are told. Oh, I could tell you stories that would darken the sky and stop the blood. The stories I could tell no one would believe. I would have to pour blood on the floor to convince anyone that every word I say is true. And then? Whose blood would speak for me?"
April 10, 2017
My introduction to Dorothy Allison was Bastard Out of Carolina and I was stunned. I knew going in it was partly autobiographical, but it didn't seem possible that this incredible story could have happened. I was so consumed by the story that I didn't even think about the writing until I had finished. I then realized how special and talented Dorothy Allison is. I truly believe that "Bastard" will become a classic.
I say all of this because this book, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, gives us insight into the history and life experiences of the writer. And it's a history that is just as incredible, just as horrible, as her fictionalized account. Allison isn't the only person that has experienced this kind of abuse, far from it. But very few have the ability to tell the story with the skill and the passion that she does. For anyone interested in Dorothy Allison, her writing, and her incredible story, this memoir is a great place to start.
4.5 stars
I say all of this because this book, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, gives us insight into the history and life experiences of the writer. And it's a history that is just as incredible, just as horrible, as her fictionalized account. Allison isn't the only person that has experienced this kind of abuse, far from it. But very few have the ability to tell the story with the skill and the passion that she does. For anyone interested in Dorothy Allison, her writing, and her incredible story, this memoir is a great place to start.
4.5 stars
July 4, 2022
Most of Bastard Out of Carolina was autobiographical. I can't really imagine how anyone could make the choices Dorothy Allison's mother had made. I guess poverty and early abuse forever twist your sense of the world and yourself.
October 28, 2016
This is the second I've read by Dorothy Allison, the first was Bastard out of Carolina. I'm not sure whether it's because I'm from South Carolina, a little lost on my own family history, have dealt with similar instances of abuse, or if it's simply the weight and importance of her words, but each time after completing a reading of her work I've had to take a few deep breaths and a solid hour or two to recover.
If you care about sisterhood, about family, about individuality, truth and meaning for the oppressed and repressed, you'll care about Dorothy Allison. She's hard, rough around the edges, and she points straight to the heart of what's real and true--that we've got to start loving each other a little more. From abuse stems anger, hate and self loathing, and not one of those things foster love. Dorothy Allison writes about growing up and out of abuse - and through grit and storytelling learning two of three things about how to love.
If you care about sisterhood, about family, about individuality, truth and meaning for the oppressed and repressed, you'll care about Dorothy Allison. She's hard, rough around the edges, and she points straight to the heart of what's real and true--that we've got to start loving each other a little more. From abuse stems anger, hate and self loathing, and not one of those things foster love. Dorothy Allison writes about growing up and out of abuse - and through grit and storytelling learning two of three things about how to love.
Want to read
November 28, 2018https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&s... reading now. Found it here for free.
December 24, 2022
This book was first published in 1995. The world is catching up and it was finally recorded in Audible in 2020. I listen to it in audible almost a decade after I first read it in print. It is no less stunning than the first time I read it, so I guess the world has not yet totally caught up to this book.
This is a book about sex and lesbianism and incest and rape. But also about a lot more may be like knowing yourself and believing in yourself. It is a short book, but it might stick with you.
————————-
I am on a Dorothy Allison binge. This is the fourth book of hers I have read and the third in a row. I have given five stars to the first three.
Her books seem to cover similar territory: she is a feminist, a queer, a storyteller, and had a brutal beginning in life. So far I have not minded the repetition because her stories are done so well and she writes about her roots from both a fiction and nonfiction style. Sometimes it is not clear which is which.
One thing that is added in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is black and white photographs. You get to see the people you have been reading about, always an interesting experience for me to compare the reality with my mind’s eye. I have listened as Dorothy called herself “white trash” but I look at these photos and just don’t see any white trash.
If you have read any of my other reviews of Dorothy Allison books, you will notice that this review is different. I copies great gobs of the other books into the reviews. I figure this gives readers a chance to experience some of the actual book. And besides I couldn’t really put in my own different words and say it better than the author.
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is a small book, smaller than 5” x 8” and less than one hundred pages in the hardback. At the back of the book there is an Author’s Note.
So this is the same story I have been reading over and over with some modifications. But, you know, I am not tired of the story yet. Each time it comes to me a little differently but just as powerfully. This woman has made her life into a work of art and let all of us get to know her intimately in the process. She is worth meeting. I hope you will consider getting to know her in at least one of the venues. Bastard has also been made into a movie if you want to search it out.
I am sure that I will eventually read the two additional books published by Dorothy Allison: The Women Who Hate Me: Poetry 1980-1990 and Cavedweller .
This is a book about sex and lesbianism and incest and rape. But also about a lot more may be like knowing yourself and believing in yourself. It is a short book, but it might stick with you.
————————-
I am on a Dorothy Allison binge. This is the fourth book of hers I have read and the third in a row. I have given five stars to the first three.
Her books seem to cover similar territory: she is a feminist, a queer, a storyteller, and had a brutal beginning in life. So far I have not minded the repetition because her stories are done so well and she writes about her roots from both a fiction and nonfiction style. Sometimes it is not clear which is which.
One thing that is added in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is black and white photographs. You get to see the people you have been reading about, always an interesting experience for me to compare the reality with my mind’s eye. I have listened as Dorothy called herself “white trash” but I look at these photos and just don’t see any white trash.
If you have read any of my other reviews of Dorothy Allison books, you will notice that this review is different. I copies great gobs of the other books into the reviews. I figure this gives readers a chance to experience some of the actual book. And besides I couldn’t really put in my own different words and say it better than the author.
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is a small book, smaller than 5” x 8” and less than one hundred pages in the hardback. At the back of the book there is an Author’s Note.
Two or Three Things I Know for Sure was written for performance in the months following the completion of my novel, Bastard Out of Carolina. First performed in August 1991 at The Lab in San Francisco, the piece has been performed in a variety of cities and has changed with each production. For publication the work has been substantially revised.
So this is the same story I have been reading over and over with some modifications. But, you know, I am not tired of the story yet. Each time it comes to me a little differently but just as powerfully. This woman has made her life into a work of art and let all of us get to know her intimately in the process. She is worth meeting. I hope you will consider getting to know her in at least one of the venues. Bastard has also been made into a movie if you want to search it out.
I am sure that I will eventually read the two additional books published by Dorothy Allison: The Women Who Hate Me: Poetry 1980-1990 and Cavedweller .
January 10, 2022
J'avais été très touchée par le premier Dorothy Allison que j'ai lu : L'histoire de Bone (1992). Un roman largement autobiographique et empli de la violence de son enfance. Ici, on reste dans la continuité puisque la publication initiale de "Two or Three Things I Know for Sure" date de 1995 (et 2021 pour la France... on remercie les éditions Cambourakis !).
C'est très court, mais dense, et on retrouve les mêmes personnages - surtout la mère et la tante de Dorothy (cette dernière ayant prononcé la phrase-titre). L'emphase est sur les femmes : leurs parcours, désillusions, dans une Caroline du Sud où les opportunités se limitaient souvent à être mère au foyer et à enchaîner les grossesses. On va aussi plus loin, avec des moments de vie où Dorothy est adolescente puis adulte, découvre sa sexualité, et fait son coming-out. Elle cherche à exorciser ses souvenirs d'abus sexuel, à ne pas les ramener avec elle dans son lit (partagé).
C'est un très bel essai, où rien n'est jamais sûr et où il faut toujours lutter : contre ses démons personnels, ceux des autres, mais aussi pour garder les souvenirs d'une famille où beaucoup de choses ont été oubliées.
Nb: une superbe note de traduction en avant-propos, qui explique les choix faits concernant la traduction au féminin, masculin ou neutre.
C'est très court, mais dense, et on retrouve les mêmes personnages - surtout la mère et la tante de Dorothy (cette dernière ayant prononcé la phrase-titre). L'emphase est sur les femmes : leurs parcours, désillusions, dans une Caroline du Sud où les opportunités se limitaient souvent à être mère au foyer et à enchaîner les grossesses. On va aussi plus loin, avec des moments de vie où Dorothy est adolescente puis adulte, découvre sa sexualité, et fait son coming-out. Elle cherche à exorciser ses souvenirs d'abus sexuel, à ne pas les ramener avec elle dans son lit (partagé).
C'est un très bel essai, où rien n'est jamais sûr et où il faut toujours lutter : contre ses démons personnels, ceux des autres, mais aussi pour garder les souvenirs d'une famille où beaucoup de choses ont été oubliées.
Nb: une superbe note de traduction en avant-propos, qui explique les choix faits concernant la traduction au féminin, masculin ou neutre.
September 12, 2016
3.5 A good read for a day when you feel down -- when you feel vulnerable to the whispers saying "you're not that smart, you're not that pretty, you're not that strong," Allison reminds you that you are all you need to be and more than you know.
June 27, 2023
"Well, I need to make lists. I need people's names. Where's our family Bible?"
"Our what?"
"We don't have a family Bible?"
"Child, some days we don't even have a family!"
"Our what?"
"We don't have a family Bible?"
"Child, some days we don't even have a family!"
April 18, 2022
Hidden gem I read in one sitting! A memoir of only 90 pages about growing up working class in the South, about childhood abuse, how girls are sexualised from a young age, and naming love between women when it's unheard of in your community. Page to page it is infused with love and strength; Allison's storytelling is so readable and beautiful and takes back power.
Heard of it through Cvetkovich's An Archive of Feelings
Heard of it through Cvetkovich's An Archive of Feelings
July 3, 2025
Une autobiographie comme j'aimerais savoir en écrire. C'était juste, c'était poétique, c'était intéressant, c'était sensible et sincère. Dorothy Allison à une très belle plume servie par une très belle traduction et elle avait l'air d'être admirable.
Moi qui ne suis pas une grande fan de biographie j'ai pris un grand plaisir à lire celle-ci
Moi qui ne suis pas une grande fan de biographie j'ai pris un grand plaisir à lire celle-ci
December 18, 2010
I feel like it must be hard to write your memoirs so beautifully that they read like fiction. Example:
"That beautiful boy my mama loved, as skinny as her, as ignorant and hungry, as proud as he could be to have that beautiful girl, her skin full of heat, her eyes full of hope. And when he ran away, left her to raise me alone, she never trusted any man again--but wanted to, wanted to so badly it ate the heart out of her."
I could never write something like that about somebody I knew as well as my mama. It's almost embarrassing to come off like you know so much about their lives that you're putting it out there for the whole world to read.. but it was amazing to read.. and I'm consistently amazed by Dorothy Allison.. and I don't know her family for shit so I don't gotta worry about it. Oh shit!
"That beautiful boy my mama loved, as skinny as her, as ignorant and hungry, as proud as he could be to have that beautiful girl, her skin full of heat, her eyes full of hope. And when he ran away, left her to raise me alone, she never trusted any man again--but wanted to, wanted to so badly it ate the heart out of her."
I could never write something like that about somebody I knew as well as my mama. It's almost embarrassing to come off like you know so much about their lives that you're putting it out there for the whole world to read.. but it was amazing to read.. and I'm consistently amazed by Dorothy Allison.. and I don't know her family for shit so I don't gotta worry about it. Oh shit!
Read
October 3, 2022Tout petit livre, sous forme d'autobiographie (mais romancée parfois ?) qui retrace les vies, pensées, existences diverses de Dorothy et des femmes de sa famille, le tout parsemé de petites pépites de sagesse ou de réflexions.
Intéressant, mais peut-être qu'il aurait fallu que je le lise après avoir lu d'autres choses de Dorothy Allison d'abord - c'est un tout petit peu abstrait quand on ne connaît pas du tout l'autrice (en tout cas à mon sens)
Intéressant, mais peut-être qu'il aurait fallu que je le lise après avoir lu d'autres choses de Dorothy Allison d'abord - c'est un tout petit peu abstrait quand on ne connaît pas du tout l'autrice (en tout cas à mon sens)
November 14, 2024
Dévoré en un souffle, une lecture aussi vive qu'un grand feu qui a incendié mon esprit. C'était percutant, j'ai hâte de lire tout ce qu'elle a écrit, et je suis si triste de ne la découvrir que maintenant.
September 1, 2024
i first read this memoir in college for one of my women’s studies classes, and rereading it definitely makes me want to read her novel bastard out of carolina. the writing is truly beautiful and kind of abstract—it reads like poetry in my opinion. i really appreciated the inclusion of the pictures of her family. it’s a short read but says so much.
January 31, 2025
There are two or three things I know for sure... one of them is that I love Dorothy Allison.
May 27, 2015
Just because it is short does NOT mean this one doesn't pack a punch. Dorthy Allison, through a mostly true (by her admission) memoir tells the story of her early life and influences good and terrible. Her perspective is from a unique place.......and it ain't pretty. She takes raw inventory of her influences, rejects how she is expected to compute her own life story, and throws out thoughts that will make you think. There is agenda there, but it is supported by background information that will make you see her side of life- however disturbing. You find in here the makings of great short stories, if it weren't for the fact that they are true and stomach turning. I feel like I "get" her, and not because I feel pity for her- it is a more fluid conversation that demands respect.
March 19, 2023
Dorothy Allison scrive un breve memoir con una scrittura precisa e spietata che ottiene il suo scopo: dare la sensazione di percepire ogni colpo, ogni momento.
È come una canzone del Sud. Lenta, ritmata, triste. Da ascoltare con un bicchiere in mano per non avere paura.
E quando svanisce, in dissolvenza, nella nostra testa rimangono aggrappate quelle due o tre note, quelle due o tre cose. Di sicuro.
È come una canzone del Sud. Lenta, ritmata, triste. Da ascoltare con un bicchiere in mano per non avere paura.
E quando svanisce, in dissolvenza, nella nostra testa rimangono aggrappate quelle due o tre note, quelle due o tre cose. Di sicuro.
August 10, 2019
I seem to be in the minority with my low rating but I just didn't see why this was a great story. Not only was it very very short but I just found it disjointed and didn't get the point. I also wanted to know more, she didn't explain a lot of things and usually memoirs are a lot longer. That being said I always hate to give a low rating when I know its about someone's real life.
April 10, 2019
this is a choppy mess that shouldn't have been published. hugely disappointing after reading Bastard Out of Carolina. it's supposed to be about storytelling, but she never finishes a story. there's even a quote that says, "telling the story all the way through is an act of love." that's one of the two or three things she knows, which is a nonsense device.
1 star
1 star
March 11, 2022
"Behind my carefully buttoned collar is my nakedness, the struggle to find clean clothes, food, meaning, and money. Behind sex is rage, behind anger is love, behind this moment is silence, years of silence."
August 2, 2015
powerful, fast, intense, honest.
September 3, 2017
She is an excellent writer and a good soul.
March 11, 2024
I think that sometimes we come across things that make us think, huh, there is no way it was not the universe that led me here. It's like the stories lie potent and just waiting. Or maybe we've all seen so much that the observant ones find resonance in everything there is and everything there is not.
I just think it's a miracle I found this book. It's a genuine take on trauma not made for those unready to face the reality of being queer and being a woman in an ugly, perverted world.
I just think it's a miracle I found this book. It's a genuine take on trauma not made for those unready to face the reality of being queer and being a woman in an ugly, perverted world.
April 13, 2022
The accomplished writer captures succinctly and devastatingly her experience growing up in a troubled, impoverished family in the American South. It's more of a long-form essay, and I could see it being used for discussion in a college lit class or a book group that focused on shorter works and memoirs.
June 24, 2013
It’s a shame that Dorothy Allison’s memoir Two or Three Things I Know for Sure will likely never receive the widespread reading it so richly deserves. The slim volume should be required reading. It is raw, filled with emotion which cuts to the bone. Tales of searing pain and loss, loss, even, of what one has never possessed. Ultimately, though, a book of hope, hope springing from the very fact that the book exists.
It is, I suppose, a book meant for other women, but one whose greatest potential lesson might be for men, could they somehow be persuaded to read it. For women, it lends the courage to say “You can’t break me…And you’re never going to touch me again.“ For men, it could show that every action has an effect, that each sexist act, however insignificant they may think it is, diminishes not only women, but men, as well. In a world where boys are raised to believe high school athletes can rape with impunity, it might shed light that the harm done goes far beyond one specific victim, that the damage is, in addition, to society itself. Though Allison never says the words, it might even show that “no” does, in fact, mean no, and that consent clouded by drugs or alcohol is not consent at all.
It’s also a tale of family, of revisited childhood, of learning that things aren’t always what they seem. Of salvation and escape in story. The use of created story to avoid telling the story the world tries to force upon her of life, not just hers, but, as she says, “my mother’s life, my sisters’, uncles’, cousins’, and lost girlfriends’ -- those are the stories that could destroy me, erase me, mock and deny me.” That is what rape is really about, not sex, but power, the male’s way of saying, “You’re nothing. I can do anything I want to you because you don’t matter.” OF forcing women to tell a story of defeat. Allison’s basic message is to expose that for the lie it is.
Again, it is a story filled with pain, rendered all the more stark by Allison's down-to-earth, conversational prose. In the end, though, a sense of uplift prevails, the feeling that woman have the potential to triumph over whatever adversity comes their way.
It is, I suppose, a book meant for other women, but one whose greatest potential lesson might be for men, could they somehow be persuaded to read it. For women, it lends the courage to say “You can’t break me…And you’re never going to touch me again.“ For men, it could show that every action has an effect, that each sexist act, however insignificant they may think it is, diminishes not only women, but men, as well. In a world where boys are raised to believe high school athletes can rape with impunity, it might shed light that the harm done goes far beyond one specific victim, that the damage is, in addition, to society itself. Though Allison never says the words, it might even show that “no” does, in fact, mean no, and that consent clouded by drugs or alcohol is not consent at all.
It’s also a tale of family, of revisited childhood, of learning that things aren’t always what they seem. Of salvation and escape in story. The use of created story to avoid telling the story the world tries to force upon her of life, not just hers, but, as she says, “my mother’s life, my sisters’, uncles’, cousins’, and lost girlfriends’ -- those are the stories that could destroy me, erase me, mock and deny me.” That is what rape is really about, not sex, but power, the male’s way of saying, “You’re nothing. I can do anything I want to you because you don’t matter.” OF forcing women to tell a story of defeat. Allison’s basic message is to expose that for the lie it is.
Again, it is a story filled with pain, rendered all the more stark by Allison's down-to-earth, conversational prose. In the end, though, a sense of uplift prevails, the feeling that woman have the potential to triumph over whatever adversity comes their way.
August 27, 2011
"Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that to go on living I have to tell stories, that stories are the one sure way I know to touch the heart and change the world."
This book that is less than 100 pages is the autobiography of novelist Dorothy Allison - or is it? Although the impression that I got was that the stories were true, the whole book is littered with phrases that make the reader doubt where true life ends and her story telling takes over. She began the story with her childhood, a graphic description of how her family fit perfectly in the "white trash" mind set. It wasn't until she became a young adult that she realized that she was in charge and she didn't have to wear the "coat" the world had made for her.
This is one of the few books that makes me cry every time I read it. She got some harsh reviews, a lot of them dealing with the length of the book and her outspoken views regarding sex but I find those reviews ridiculous. Sure, the book is short, but what's inside is some of the most uniquely written prose I've ever read. She seems to have woven truth and fiction into a completely different genre. Her opinions of sex are unique but not unfounded. I think she gives the reader a great understanding behind her views.
This is one of my favorite books. I highly recommend that EVERYONE read this book - it's so unique that I guarentee every one will take something different from it.
This book that is less than 100 pages is the autobiography of novelist Dorothy Allison - or is it? Although the impression that I got was that the stories were true, the whole book is littered with phrases that make the reader doubt where true life ends and her story telling takes over. She began the story with her childhood, a graphic description of how her family fit perfectly in the "white trash" mind set. It wasn't until she became a young adult that she realized that she was in charge and she didn't have to wear the "coat" the world had made for her.
This is one of the few books that makes me cry every time I read it. She got some harsh reviews, a lot of them dealing with the length of the book and her outspoken views regarding sex but I find those reviews ridiculous. Sure, the book is short, but what's inside is some of the most uniquely written prose I've ever read. She seems to have woven truth and fiction into a completely different genre. Her opinions of sex are unique but not unfounded. I think she gives the reader a great understanding behind her views.
This is one of my favorite books. I highly recommend that EVERYONE read this book - it's so unique that I guarentee every one will take something different from it.
August 15, 2016
"Two or three things I know, two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form." Page 86.
I read this book in one sitting. It was raw and gritty and painful to read at times, yet so beautifully written and another reminder to me of how often real life is messy and it is what makes us real.
I read this book in one sitting. It was raw and gritty and painful to read at times, yet so beautifully written and another reminder to me of how often real life is messy and it is what makes us real.
February 15, 2021
"Vi racconto una storia. Vi racconto la storia che non contiene alcun elemento romanzato, la storia del corpo di donna a cui era stato insegnato a odiare se stesso."
Bel libro di memorie, duro, toccante, tagliente, coraggioso.
Storie di donne "misurate, mascoline, asessuate, generatrice di bambini, di fardelli e di disprezzo. La mia famiglia? Le donne della mia famiglia?.. Solide, stolide, coi fianchi larghi, macchine per fare figli. Avevamo tutte i fianchi larghi e lo stesso destino. Facce larghe e stupide. "
Bel libro di memorie, duro, toccante, tagliente, coraggioso.
Storie di donne "misurate, mascoline, asessuate, generatrice di bambini, di fardelli e di disprezzo. La mia famiglia? Le donne della mia famiglia?.. Solide, stolide, coi fianchi larghi, macchine per fare figli. Avevamo tutte i fianchi larghi e lo stesso destino. Facce larghe e stupide. "
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