Allison Glock
Biographical Information
Thirty-three year old Allison Glock is a writer-at-large for GQ. Her first book, Beauty Before Comfort, was published in 2003. The book is a memoir of her maternal grandmother, Aneita Jean Blair, and her life in Chester, WV, a pottery-factory nestled between the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio River. Glock lives with her family in New Jersey.
Critical Responses
Beauty Before Comfort, a small book that is very much a family history, nevertheless has garnered much national attention and critical praise. Reviewers in a variety of publications have praised Allison Glock’s work for its honesty and sincerity and its almost poetic prose. Master of memoir Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes, Tis) commented
"Beauty Before Comfort is as apt a title as you could find for a memoir that is tart and poetic. Allison Glock has the kind of writing talent that packs worlds into sentences. It’s a small book but it takes in all of American small town life and all of the American Dream. With a few deft strokes Ms. Glock summons up some wonderful characters from her family history, all circling around the grandmother, Aneita Jean Blair. You won’t forget this woman and you’ll remember forever the writer’s magical skills. What a storyteller! What a book! get a cup of tea. Put out the cat. Settle down and you’ll finish the book in one session.”
One reviewer described Beauty Before Comfort as “a memoir full of fondness. A funny, vital eulogy by a wise granddaughter about her wiser grandmother. An American story about the America you never get to see.” The review continued on to comment that “Allison Glock writes with humor, lyricism, and beauty to create a truly unforgettable portrait of a remarkable person in a unique setting.”
Another reviewer, writing for the Intellectual Conservative, write
Ms. Glock does not pull her punches. Her descriptions of kith and kin, friend and enemy, neighbor and townsmen are ruthless, tender, sarcastic, loving, and cruel. She despises the provincialism of Chester and Newell, West Virginia, the stereotypical toothless hillbillies, the men who hunt meat with guns and eat what they kill, in tacky, clapboard sided company houses, but she gives grudging approbation to the same people who work hard, care for their families, and when their nation calls, voluntarily join the ranks of citizen-soldiers.
The same reviewer continues on
Ms. Glock’s book is in one sense a search for self, a search for who she is and where she came from. Her research is substantive and meticulous. She has looked under all the rocks, and examined the dusty closets of lives well lived. The incubus came as they often do, but it did not speak of redemption; so it remains to be seen whether or not the demon was exorcised.
Allison Glock’s writing is honest, clever, and elegant with just a suggestion of East Coast hauteur. She has established herself as a significant writer destined to attend many a wine and cheese party, lecture at writing clinics, and participate in the odd seminar in Academe but, in the end, whether she understand or not, she is the most beautiful of species: a West Virginia girl!
Works Published
- Beauty Before Comfort
Selected Bibliography
Cohen, Joyce. Beauty Before Comfort (book review). People, May 12, 2003. 59(18), 47.
Earley, Tony. Big Flirt in a Small Pond. New York Times Book Review, August 10, 2003. 152(52571), 14.
Shaw, Gene. Beauty Before Comfort (book review). Library Journal, August 15, 2003. 128(13), 96.
Author Website
none available