Gal: A True Life. - book reviews

Ruthie M. Bolton. 1994; 275 pp. ISBN 0-15-10104-9 $19.95 ($23.45 postpaid) from Harcourt Brace Trade Dept., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, FL 32887-4300; 800/543-1918, fax 800/874-6418

How do you write about a life filled with violence? Ruthie Botton does it exquisitely, with honesty and poetry. In Gal, her first book Bolton tells of her childhood in South Carolina -- enduring ritual beatings from her grandfather, witnessing the slow murder of her grandmother, abusive relationships with sex, alcohol, drugs.... This was her childhood.

My god, you might say, who wants to read about these things? You do. Because Ruthie's story is so beautifully told, with such a remarkable absence of self-pity or bitterness, that even when you want to weep, you will smile to know that this woman survived, found beauty, and loved You will took at your own life differently. Trust me. Trust Gal.

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And finally the horse broke his leg. And broke something else on it so they had to shoot it. It was during the fall, the leaves were yellow and brown. Some of the leaves were on the ground. I was standing there. Mr. Buzz took a rifle, shot him right in the head, and the horse fell down. There were six or seven mens, the drunks that always come out there, and they buried that horse right there in the backyard. They did it just to get a bottle of drink afterwards. A brown pretty horse with a cream-colored tail.

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He came to the house and Daddy wasn't home (Granddaddy, but I called him Daddy). There was a little red chair that was always passed down to the next daughter -- it was my mother's chair first, and then it went down through all the sisters until it came to me -- and I remember that red chair right there just before you walk into the dining area, and I was sitting in it, and my mother was against the wall with this man, kissing and rocking, I mean they were just going crazy. And I sat there and I watched that. Then he took her chest out. I mean I watched this thing. They were kissing and kissing. And I remember walking up to him, and I said, "Marlon," I said, "are you my daddy?"

And he never answered. He never answered. But he didn't stay that long. He left.

*

And then, those seeds that we didn't know what they were, they started to sprout. First a little bit of green, and then the plants taking shape. And it came up to be cucumbers, watermelon, corn, squash, okra, collards, everything! Things that looked better than in the stores today. It was a surprise to me that they came up like that. And I thought it was so pretty, so pretty.

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When I came in his room, he said, "I had a call. Your mama dead." He said, "She got burnt up in a fire. Somebody killed her."

And I remember just standing there looking at him. And I remember I twist my feet, so I was standing on the side of my shoes. And then I remember walking out of the room. I went back in the front yard and sat on the step. And I was just thinking. I said, I didn't really know who she was.

She played the drums. She liked Mary Janes candy,

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When Daddy used to beat me, I would pray, Lord, don't let me feel the pain. And it was like I felt it, but then I didn't feel it. I felt it, and I didn't feel it. And I said to myself I will never let that man see me tear. Not one tear. And he never did. That's why he called me a tough nigger. When he said that, I figured I was a tough nigger. I had to prove that I was. I made myself to be hard. Towards men. Towards everybody. I learned how to not feel anything at all.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Point Foundation
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