The Liars' Club brought to vivid, indelible life Mary Karr's hardscrabble Texas childhood. Cherry, her account of her adolescence, "continued to set the literary standard for making the personal universal" (Entertainment Weekly). Now Lit follows the self-professed blackbelt sinner's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness—and to her astonishing resurrection.
Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting blueblood poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott," with an oddball tribe of gurus and saviors, awakens her to the possibility of joy and leads her to an unlikely faith. Not since Saint Augustine cried, "Give me chastity, Lord—but not yet!" has a conversion story rung with such dark hilarity.
Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up—as only Mary Karr can tell it.
I read The Liar's Club and Cherry several years ago and loved them both. When I saw that Mary Karr was continuing to tell her story with a new memoir, I just had to read it. Karr writes with an honesty that I only wish I could match, and reminds us all of what it means to be human, to make mistakes, and to blame yourself for things you can't change.
Her newest memoir, Lit, focuses mainly on her drinking and how she started drinking in the first place. It describes her struggle to become a published writer. Her mother was an alcoholic and her childhood was poor and unstable. Lit explores her late teens and college years, her early career, and her marriage, as well as motherhood, sisterhood, and being a daughter. Karr deals with the guilt she experienced as a result of not caring for her father as much as she would have liked when he was living out his last years. She deals with the disgust she feels toward her mother, and also the determination she felt to not become like her mother. If anything, this book proves that no matter how much you try to change where you came from, you are always the same person deep down inside.
If you enjoyed The Liar's Club and Cherry, you will enjoy Lit. I would recommend reading them first, but it's not necessary to enjoy this book. I had read them so long ago that I couldn't remember much from them anyway.
I have to admit that Ms. Karr's "The Liars' Club: A Memoir" is one of my favorite books of all time. Memoirs are one of my favorite genres and being able to see behind the scenes in the life of a poet/writer is intriguing. I enjoyed reading "Cherry" and was thrilled when I saw that Ms. Karr had "Lit" coming out, taking up where "Cherry" left off. What I enjoyed most about this book was her lyrical, moving language and her fierce honesty. This couldn't have been an easy book to write because she holds nothing back and is brutally candid about her alcoholism and how it almost destroyed her, but more importantly, how she overcame her inner demons to find sobriety and success. She has several stories about her experiences in AA that had me either rolling with laughter or crying. The story about the woman, the frozen turkey and the vodka was side-splitting funny. I won't share the details because you need to buy the book and read it for yourself. It's overflowing with wit, humor, love, angst and wisdom.
Each chapter begins with a quote, most from poems, (and a few from some literary masterpieces) and I've discovered some amazing new poets from them. I've highlighted and dog-eared pages to refer back to in nearly every chapter. I like that she included a 'Contents' page and titled each of the 45 short chapters. The book is divided into four major sections:
I. Escape From The Tropic of Squalor
II. Flashdance
III. Self Help
IV. Being Who You Are Is Not A Disorder
Ultimately, this is a dazzling tale of redemption, liberation, grace and survival. By all accounts, Mary Karr should not have survived her hardscrabble life, but thank God she did because we are all richer for her life and her stories.
I also highly recommend her poetry, "Viper Rum (Poets, Penguin)", Sinners Welcome: Poems", "Abacus", and "The Devil's Tour".
Thank you, Ms. Karr, from the bottom of my bookaholic, poet-heart, for having the guts to share your incredible, extraordinary journey with us.
Mary Karr is an awesome writer and "Lit" just became one of my top 50 books of all time. The first 100+ pages are harrowing as Ms. Karr describes her long self-destructive slide into alcoholism (just like her parents). These pages are hard to take, just like watching a car wreck in slow motion. However her brutal honesty and her gallows humor about her road to redemption and sobriety save this memoir from being another AA recovery tale. She writes of her self-centered, off-center mother and a childhood from hell with the ring of truth. The heart of the memoir is family : grieving for her father (who, she perceived to win "the better parent prize" because he didn't stand over her with a butcher knife), figuring out her relationship with her now sober but still off the wall mother, and exploring the past with her big sister. This book is not for everyone because Ms. Karr's early life was messy and uncomfortable. But she writes like she is having a conversation with the reader and she is a master story-teller.
