Lit: A Memoir
by Mary Karr
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mary KarrEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-11-03
ISBN: 0060596988
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Harper
Book Reviews of Lit: A Memoir
Book Review: I don't know if I can
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't know if I can review this book fairly. I loved it and was disappointed by it... found it frustratingly difficult to read and riveting... it made me angry and sad and happy and it was one of those books that exhausts you even as it fills you with energy.
Tim Hawkins, the Christian stand up comedian, tells a joke about Church people. Adopting a hang dog expression he pretends to be the person in the pew listening to a powerful witness and he says: "This guy has a BEAUTIFUL witness... I have a terrible one... I wish I was addicted to crack...." His timing is perfect he adds a sarcastic and disappointed "THANKS God!"
Christians have had this (immature) reaction to the powerful conversion of others from the beginning, and we are all tempted to it, which is why Hawkins gets huge laughs with this schtick. Christ makes sure to include the older brother in the story of the prodigal son for a reason. He covers it too when he speaks about the workers in the field getting their daily wage at the end of the day.
Yet reminding yourself of those facts as you read doesn't silence the enemy. He tries to make you jealous. "I wish I was an alcoholic and divorced and only had one kid and taught literature at a fancy school after being locked in the looney bin for a while..... THANKS God!!"
To say Mary Karr is a good writer is a serious understatement. I rank her up there with Flannery O'Connor... almost. More on this later. I think this woman is an absolute genius. She uses words in ways most of us who do any writing, even meaningless stuff like our random thoughts on websites, can only dream of.
The book was very difficult for me to read. The story of her addictions is so painfully told, her relationships and the characters so vividly painted, that I just had to put it down to avoid becoming overwhelmed at points.
And there is the fact that this book reads like a confession. She holds absolutely nothing back. Mary Karr may be one of the most self-reflective writers I have read, and her self-knowledge is incredible. I really admire her ability to look in the mirror... and then write.
But it also made me mad. I mean, everyone will heap praise on this book and Mary Karr because she was on the sauce and has learned to be sober and be nice to people. But darn it, being Catholic is about WAY more than that, and she doesn't touch on any of it. This always makes me angry when I read these things. At least she doesn't go out on a limb to attack the Church that she just entered by denying all the Church's teachings like some recent "converts" have done. But it ticks me off nonetheless. What about the hard stuff? The stuff we always get thrown in our faces? I mean... I was never drunk (much) but throwing my contraceptives in the garbage wasn't easy... TALK TO ME. I am one of those idiots who actually believes ALL this stuff!!!
I mean Flannery O'Connor ran from NOTHING. Read her letters. Her theology is so deep and rich and CATHOLIC and her struggles so articulately communicated... I found myself saying "Mary Karr has the talent... GIVE ME MORE O'Connor!!!"
And that isn't fair, but I read this book while reading O'Connor's letters and the comparison was unavoidable (they ARE both southern in my defense) and it isn't fair to make my love for Catholic doctrine demand every other Catholic put that front and center too.
But... but... is she REALLY saying that she became Catholic because some people at Church were nice to her, and she prayed, and she doesn't mention dogma once except to say that it gets people excited?
Doesn't she realize that during lent when she had that waking vision of serpents at 3:00AM and that fact has RELEVANCE??? Its 3 AM!!! Or is she just assuming that those in the know will get it? (Christ died at 3PM and many many exorcists report the devil likes to operate on you when its 3 in the morning your time to mock God and Christ... laugh if you want... But exorcists say it and Mary Karr experienced it)
I know I'm a zealot... I know... I mean I read G.K. Chesterton and Flannery O'Connor, and Hillaire Belloc. I want my Catholicism on steroids, dogma and all, because I love it and think it true. So, I am not sure I can review this one fairly.
I can only say that it is a beautiful book, very well written, and beautifully told, and it won't get her in any trouble with anybody, because she doesn't go THERE.
And darn thats frustrating. But its a great book nonetheless.
Strongly recommended.
Summary of Lit: A Memoir
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.Product Description
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.
Photos from Mary Karr
(Click to Enlarge)
 |  |  |  |
| Mary's much adored oil-worker Daddy | Mary's artist mother, Charlie Karr | Mary, at 22, meeting poet Howard Nemerov | Mary one month before visiting the "Mental Marriott" |
 |  |  |  |  |
| Mary, age 17, with sister Lecia, age 19 | Mary and young son Dev | Mary with family before her Leitchfield Liars' Club reading | Mary celebrating the holidays with son Dev | Mary's son, Dev Milburn, in 2009 |
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