Two or three things i know for sure

                In Dorothy Allison’s “Two or Three Things I know for Sure” she has an interesting way of telling her story. Not only does she write about her life and that of her family but she also manages to include some photos pertaining to the people involved in the story. The photos are especially interesting to me because without Dorothy Allison’s writing you would never guess what was really going on and could not hope to appreciate the significance in some instances.

                For example, there is one instance in which there is a photo of a young girl curiously examining a rifle and in the next aiming at nothing in particular. In the photo there is no malice in this young woman’s eyes and all of her actions, as depicted in the photo, point to a person with a passing curiosity towards the weapon. However, there is much more to this photo than meets the eye and this becomes a common theme in “Two or Three Things I Know for Sure”. Allison writes, “I know. I’m not supposed to talk about how long it took me to wash him out of my body – how many targets I shot…”. You would never know that the woman in the photo is imagining taking a shot at her abusive stepfather when she aims that weapon at the target. Allison is allowing us to be privy to the back story of every photograph and thereby enabling readers to gain access the valuable details which make the photo relevant.

                It would seem that one of the things that Dorothy Allison knows for sure is that there is always more to something if you look under the surface. In her photos it is impossible to understand the context  without Allison’s assistance and she wants us to come away knowing this, that most things are not what they appear to be.