Describe the abuse the Boatwright men show against women in the novel.

In the Boatwrights' dysfunctional family dynamic, Glen vents his feelings of frustration and rage through violence and Anney tacitly endorses his behavior by shifting responsibility for the abuse to his victim, Bone. Anney's enabling behavior and final betrayal "raises questions that perhaps no one can answer" about love, family and moral responsibility (Korb 62). Allison's depiction of abuse does not give the reader any easy answers, nor do her depictions exploit or sensationalize Glen's physical and sexual assaults. Instead of repeating "page to page, the variations in the ways Daddy Glen beats Bone" the novel remains focused on Bone's experience of the abuse: her pain, her thoughts, her doubts (Hollibaugh 15). By focusing on Bone's attempts to process the abuse instead of the abuse itself, Allison's novel transcends the social message genre, which is why it has since become a classic piece of contemporary American literature.