“River of Names” is part of a collection of short stories in the book Trash published in 1988, written by Dorothy Allison. It is the basis for the later novel Bastard out of Carolina. In her powerful writing, Allison draws on her own harrowing childhood in 1950s Greenville, South Carolina: the stigma of growing up a bastard, the shame and pride she felt toward her family, and her association with her stepfather who beat and molested her. “In this story, “River of Names,” Allison writes about her life as a way to come to terms with her past, honoring the attempt to make contemporary literature out of her experience as a working class lesbian addicted t