Gal: A True Life

Born in 1961 of a 13-year-old mother--father unknown--Ruthie Mae, or ``Gal'' as she was known, was raised in a Charleston, S.C., black island community as a virtual slave to a drunken, sadistic step-grandfather who beat his wife to death. After years of theft, alcohol and drugs, Gal doggedly--almost to spite her grandfather--graduated from high school as a means of survival. The harrowing, oral account of the girl's travails conveys the author's lively portraits of a motley cast of characters (all bearing pseudonyms). Becoming a prostitute to flee her brutal first husband, Gal was happily transformed by a second marriage and motherhood. The abundance of sordid detail may daunt some readers, but from it all emerges the portrait of a remarkable woman, still ``tasting and peering, touching, listening.'' Author tour. (May)