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Synopsis
"Astonishing....One of the most dazzling and moving memoirs to come along in years." – Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
Lit follows Mary Karr's descent into the inferno of alcoholism and madness—and her astonishing resurrection.
Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting 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" awakens her to the possibility of joy, and leads her to an unlikely faith. Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. It is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up—as only Mary Karr can tell it.
The Barnes & Noble Review
In 1995, a poet by the name of Mary Karr helped change the landscape of publishing, making memoir the mountain every writer wanted to climb, because from its heights one could survey literary fame and sizable royalty checks. This she did with The Liars’ Club, the energetically written -- if at times suspiciously too-vividly recalled -- personal history of growing up in a Texas backwater with a dizzy nutcase of a mother who liked to hit the sauce (and occasionally other things) a bit hard. The author’s recipe of colorful episodes of destructive behavior retold in down-homey locutions, childish pain revisited from a distance that allows for reader-friendly humor, was so winning it inspired many others to join the Sin Sweepstakes. Still, no one rules the genre of misconduct autobiography quite like Mary Karr.