Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
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.
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
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
"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 is an excellent writer and a good soul.
Two or Three things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison is a poignant memoir about sexual abuse and family and a quick read of just ninety-four pages. Allison is from Greenville, South Carolina and a family she describes as Peasants, thats 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 (1).Allison includes numerous family photos that remind me of my own childhood, sisters, and birth family. Her
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
Dorothy Allison
Hardcover | Pages: 94 pages Rating: 4.09 | 4037 Users | 275 Reviews
Identify Out Of Books Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Title | : | Two or Three Things I Know for Sure |
Author | : | Dorothy Allison |
Book Format | : | Hardcover |
Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
Pages | : | Pages: 94 pages |
Published | : | August 1995 by Penguin |
Categories | : | Autobiography. Memoir. Nonfiction. GLBT. Queer. Feminism. LGBT |
Commentary Concering Books Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
A Quick RecommendationThis 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.
Particularize Books As Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Original Title: | Two or Three Things I Know for Sure |
ISBN: | 0525939210 (ISBN13: 9780525939214) |
Edition Language: | English |
Literary Awards: | Stonewall Book Award Nominee for Literature (1996) |
Rating Out Of Books Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
Ratings: 4.09 From 4037 Users | 275 ReviewsAssessment Out Of Books Two or Three Things I Know for Sure
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.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
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
"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 is an excellent writer and a good soul.
Two or Three things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison is a poignant memoir about sexual abuse and family and a quick read of just ninety-four pages. Allison is from Greenville, South Carolina and a family she describes as Peasants, thats 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 (1).Allison includes numerous family photos that remind me of my own childhood, sisters, and birth family. Her
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
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