Just out., July 16, 2004, Page 39, Image 39

July 16.2004
BOOKS
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T
he first things that strike me about
Dorothy Allison are her intense honesty
1 and her intense warmth. Her conversa-
I tion is no-nonsense— full of ironic humor,
cuss words and a definite caring of others. No
bullshit here.
Her opening remarks as she sets her cafete­
ria tray on the table are about how a fan just
came up behind her, grabbed her arm and told
her how her book changed her life, causing
Allison to spill her soda. She is not amused.
“No harm done," I venture.
“It’s embarrassing as hell,” Allison responds,
“spilling shit all over the fUxir."
I take a risk to change the mood. “Other
than that, how is your day going.7”
Allison tilts her head a bit and looks at me
out of the comer of her eye. She laughs loud
and long and sits beside me.
“It’s fine. It’s just great.” She picks the her
chicken sandwich. “St) what do you want to
know?”
Uison, renowned lesbian teacher, activist,
essayist and author of National Book
I f H Award nominee Bastard Out of Carolina, is
in Portland at Reed College as part of the sec­
ond annual Tin House Summer Writers Work­
shop. Writers of all ages are moving about the
terrace in front of the dining hall. Small groups
sit around metal tables and occasionally erupt
with laughter and excitement. A literary agent
sits alone quietly reading a manuscript.
I want to know about Allison’s life these days.
“My son," she says, “Wolf Michael. He is 11.
And my partner, Alix. We have three dogs,
three cats.” She goes on about fish and a couple
of other odd creatures. The picture emerges of a
most pleasant menagerie gathered together on
acreage near Guemeville in northern California.
“I’m writing again,” she continues, taking
another bite of her sandwich. “I wasn’t for a
while, you know. Just couldn’t. Couldn’t do it. It
was a death of the soul. It was a fall into despair.”
Her words here are soft and gentle. She looks at
me for a while...to check my level of understand­
ing? “I thought maybe of being a waitress for a
few years. But that passed. I’m writing again.”
I ask her what happened.
“I lost faith,” she says. It is an answer simple
and straightforward— and complex and deep.
“Now I get it back one day at a time. If I’m not
writing, I’m not sane.” She looks at me. “I had
a couple years of that, of not sane."
She is telling me she has gone to the edge
of the cliff, she has been to the brink, and she
has looked over the edge. This sounds dramat­
ic, but I believe what she is telling me.
But Allison is writing again. She says she’s
finishing a novel with the working title She
Who, “but it is definitely a working title.”
She who
The passion and the compassion
of Dorothy Allison
by
R o d g er L a r so n
“ Teaching in workshops is like eating caviar,” says celebrated lesbian novelist Dorothy Allison,
Tin House Summer Writers Workshop
“She what?” I say, attempting humor.
“I like that,” Allison exclaims. “That could
work.”
to glory with the word. Teaching in workshops
is like eating caviar.”
Allison did a benefit reading July 14 for
Bradley-Angle House during her Portland stay.
llison is heading a workshop at the confer
“When I go somewhere, I see where I can fit
ence on “Making a Life as
in, where I can help. I’m an old
an Artist.” “I have a great
dyke,” she smiles. “I have to be
T m w ritin g
time teaching,” she shares.
of use all the time. I got to be
“This is the day job, and I love again. I w asn't doing the dishes or starting the
revolution.”
it. It is enormously satisfying....
fo r a while.
“Sounds better to be start­
These people are serious stu­
J
u
st
couldn't.
dents. They are fully focused
ing the revolution,” I say.
and dedicated.”
dishes have to be
It was a death done, “The
Allison does a number of
too,” she responds.
workshops in and out of the
o f the soul.
country. She has just returned
or obvious reasons, same-sex
It
was
a
fall
from teaching at the Aegean
is on my mind.
W marriage
1
I “I
‘ don’t need it," she says
Writing Circle on the Greek
In to despair.”
island of Andros, one of the
bluntly. “If other people do, they
Cyclades.
should have the right. We need to separate, or
detach, the religious institutions from the civil.
“Most college students don’t know what
they want to say yet. But in this workshop peo­
I pierced my girlfriend’s left tit, and 1 tattooed
ple are driven. They have something they need
her thigh. That’s married enough. But we do
legal things to protect ourselves and for our son.”
to say. They are passionate, and they take time
A
C‘
Allison has seen the second and third wave
feminist movements from both their begin­
nings, and I wonder how she feels about femi­
nism today. This makes me think of The Swan.
“I saw it once,” Allison says. “There are
these not bad-looking women, but they hate
themselves and they focus
that on their looks. Maybe
they turn out with slightly
bigger tits or something by
the end of the program, but
they’re not much different.
They all look the same. I’d
like to see them get some
drag queen on there. Some
drag queen with a beard, do
a little gender fuck with
those folks." She laughs.
I then wonder aloud what
she thinks of another famous
author who wrote about class
and the working poor, John
Steinbeck. As it turns out,
the writer advocacy organi­
zation Poets, Essayists and
Novelists has Allison work­
ing on a piece about him for
a new publication. “He ven­
erates the poor,” she says.
“He has an immediate awe
of the working-class poor."
Allison is famous for her
writing around class issues
and abuse of women and
children, something she
in town for the
suffered as a child living in
poverty in South Carolina.
I was told in a writing workshop once that a
writer must have something to say and that
what they have to say must have meaning,
some gravity. In her work Allison has that
covered big time.
A few years ago, I heard Allison speak at
Lewis «Si Clark College’s Gender Studies Sym­
posium. She was so angry, I was nervous about
our interview. I want to know: Is she still that
angry?
She looks me in the eye. “George Bush is
president of this country. Shit, yes, I’m angry.”
Her eyes flash and she pushes a loose strand of
hair away from her face. Then she smiles at
me, friendly and sweet.
It’s clear Dorothy Allison has a huge pas­
sion, which is present and yet never overshad­
ows her even deeper compassion. The two
qualities are with her in the way she thinks and
talks. They are with her in the way she is in
the world.
jn
RODGER L a r so n is a Portland free-lance uniter
and novelist.
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