HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure by…
Loading...

Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure (original 1995; edition 1995)

by Dorothy Allison

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
8731724,472 (3.86)30
Bastard Out of Carolina, nominated for the 1992 National Book Award for fiction, introduced Dorothy Allison as one of the most passionate and gifted writers of her generation. Now, in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, she takes a probing look at her family's history to give us a lyrical, complex memoir that explores how the gossip of one generation can become legends for the next. Illustrated with photographs from the author's personal collection, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure tells the story of the Gibson women -- sisters, cousins, daughters, and aunts -- and the men who loved them, often abused them, and, nonetheless, shared their destinies. With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse. As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, steeped in the hard-won wisdom of experience, expresses the strength of her unique vision with beauty and eloquence.… (more)
Member:LaurelMildred
Title:Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure
Authors:Dorothy Allison
Info:Penguin Group, New York (1995), Hardcover
Collections:Your library
Rating:***1/2
Tags:None

Work Information

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure by Dorothy Allison (1995)

Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 30 mentions

English (16)  German (1)  All languages (17)
Showing 1-5 of 16 (next | show all)
this is exhilarating in the writing and honesty. it is so raw and jagged while being so beautiful and true. it's amazing writing. amazing.

5 stars.

from 2017:
wow. so i don't like everything dorothy allison has ever done, but when i do like it, holy fuck i love it. this is beautiful and raw and real and honest and tearing and still beautiful. it's an incredible statement and i cried and soared all the way through it.

"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is what it means to have no loved version of your life but the one you make."

"Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the story all the way through is an act of love." (5 stars) ( )
  overlycriticalelisa | Jul 11, 2022 |
wow. so i don't like everything dorothy allison has ever done, but when i do like it, holy fuck i love it. this is beautiful and raw and real and honest and tearing and still beautiful. it's an incredible statement and i cried and soared all the way through it.

"Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is what it means to have no loved version of your life but the one you make."

"Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the story all the way through is an act of love." ( )
  overlycriticalelisa | Feb 17, 2017 |
Allison is a wonderful writer. ( )
  AntT | Jan 24, 2015 |
Allison is a wonderful writer. ( )
  AntT | Jan 24, 2015 |
This brilliant and boldly honest little memoir touched me deeply. Allison explores her southern working class roots, the meanings held therein for the women and the men of her family, the traps and trappings of false bravado and determined survival. Giving full voice to her experience of childhood sexual abuse, she barely flirts with the understandable self-pity and, instead, chooses strength of voice and strength of character.

Musing on the fate and demands upon the girls and women in her family:
"Beauty is a hard thing. Beauty is a mean story. Beauty is slender girls who die young, fine-featured delicate creatures about whom men write poems. Beauty, my first girlfriend said to me, is that inner quality often associated with great amounts of leisure time. And I loved her for that."

And
"The women I loved most in the world horrified me. I did not want to grow up to be them. I made myself proud of their pride, their determination, their stubbornness, but every night I prayed a man's prayer: Lord, save me from them. Do not let me become them."

And later, exploring the impact of the childhood rape and her efforts to transcend what this necessarily taught her about herself, her determination to define her own place in the world:
"Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."

At moments poetic, certainly not linear, this memoir also lets the reader into deep sibling rivalries and adoration. Beautiful. ( )
2 vote EBT1002 | Jan 24, 2014 |
Showing 1-5 of 16 (next | show all)
no reviews | add a review
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
Dedication
First words
Quotations
Last words
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English

None

Bastard Out of Carolina, nominated for the 1992 National Book Award for fiction, introduced Dorothy Allison as one of the most passionate and gifted writers of her generation. Now, in Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, she takes a probing look at her family's history to give us a lyrical, complex memoir that explores how the gossip of one generation can become legends for the next. Illustrated with photographs from the author's personal collection, Two or Three Things I Know for Sure tells the story of the Gibson women -- sisters, cousins, daughters, and aunts -- and the men who loved them, often abused them, and, nonetheless, shared their destinies. With luminous clarity, Allison explores how desire surprises and what power feels like to a young girl as she confronts abuse. As always, Dorothy Allison is provocative, confrontational, and brutally honest. Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, steeped in the hard-won wisdom of experience, expresses the strength of her unique vision with beauty and eloquence.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.86)
0.5
1 1
1.5
2 8
2.5 1
3 38
3.5 10
4 56
4.5 3
5 40

Is this you?

Become a LibraryThing Author.

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,192,255 books! | Top bar: Always visible