Patriarchal conventions in Isabel Huggan's stories force the narrator into subversive storytelling in order to get at the truth. The point of view is that of a child, but the insights are adult. Autobiography -- whether fictive or not -- allows the narrator (and, presumably, the writer) to seek an intimacy with history that will give a wider social meaning to individual identity. Gender roles are always significant to these stories, as girls and boys relate to and betray each other through prescriptive patriarchal constructions. These stories both reflect and refute the construction of female sexual identity.
