Dorothy Allison's best-selling 1992 autobiographical novel Bastard Out of Carolina (Plume) was nominated for a National Book Award and adapted into a controversial cable-TV movie by Anjelica Huston. Her second novel, Cavedweller (Plume), published in 1998, has recently been adapted for the stage by playwright Kate Ryan, and debuts April 18 at the New York Theatre Workshop (79 E. Fourth St., New York, NY 10003, 212-460-5475, <www.nytw.org>).

Both books draw heavily on Allison's real life and family. Much like “Bone,” the title character in Bastard Out of Carolina, Allison was born in 1949 in Greenville, SC, to a 15-year-old unwed mother who'd dropped out of the seventh grade to work as a waitress. Growing up, like Bone, she was abused by her stepfather. But Allison emphasizes that memoir and family history are merely a springboard for her fiction.