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Review

Greenville County, South Carolina is a wild, lush place of black walnut trees and weeping willows, of sweet tea served on shaded porches. It is also home to the Boatwright family - rough-hewn men who drink hard and shoot up each other's trucks, and women who marry young and age too quickly. At the heart of this astonishing first novel is Ruth Ann Boatwright, called Bone by her family, a South Carolina bastard with an annotated birth certficate to tell the tale.

Bone knows what Greenville County thinks of her family, and when she's not defending them passionately, she has to agree: Boatwrights are drunks and thieves and she'd like nothing more than to escape. Observing everything with a keen eye, Bone sees the leagcy of poverty and futility that marks her place in this small Southern town. Bone dreams of being a gospel singer or of living a life out of one of the books she steals from the library. She dreams not only a life away from Greenville, but really far from Daddy Glen, her stepfather whose tenderness rapidly gives way to a mean-spirited jealousy. The edges of this family are sharp enough to draw blood. Eventually Bone goes to stay with her lesbian Aunt Raylene where she learns of a life of dignity and pride.