First published 1999
Ruth Anne Boatwright sits on the porch during another sweltering South Carolina summer, drinking iced tea and remembering. Her family calls her Bone. The people of Greenville County call her bastard. She thinks about her toothless, defiant grandmother and her fierce aunts, worn down by repeated pregnancies. She remembers her violent, alcoholic uncles trapped in poverty. Most of all, she recalls the deep love she felt for her mother and the growing hatred she harbored for her stepfather. Through Bone's eyes, we see a world where children learn early about violence and survival. Her family stories mix tenderness with cruelty, hope with desperation. As Bone grows up, she must navigate the impossible terrain between loyalty and self-preservation, between the family that shapes her and the future she dreams of escaping to.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, abuse, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Greenville County, South Carolina
Period: 20th Century
414 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Editions 10-18
Content warnings: abuse, domestic-violence, physical-abuse