Award-winning lesbian author Dorothy Allison has died at age 75, following a short battle with cancer. Some sources say the acclaimed writer died on Nov. 5 or 6 at her home in California.
Allison wrote poetry, novels, essays and what she called “smut,” her work focusing on queer and working-class Southern characters. Although she had a long and lauded career as an author, it was her first novel ‑ Bastard Out of Carolina, with its powerful portrayal of poverty, sexual abuse and the devastating effects of social stigma in the American South ‑ that most people think of first when they hear her name.
Bastard Out of Carolina is set in Allison’s own hometown of Greenville, S.C. in the 1950s, and is narrated by Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright, who details her life as the illegitimate child of a teenage mother and her abuse at the hands of her mother’s husband. The book was made into a movie in 1996, starring Jena Malone as Bone and Jennifer Jason Leigh as her mother Anney. The book was named as one of the “136 Great American Novels” by The Atlantic in March 2024.
Allison was also a vocal feminist and activist for LGBTQ equality.
She was preceded in death by her wife of more than 30 years, Alix Layman, who died in 2022. Allison is survived by her son, Wolf Michael, and two sisters.
— Tammye Nash
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