Synopses & Reviews
Mary Karrs bestselling, unforgettable sequel to her beloved memoirs
The Liars Club and
Cherry—and one of the most critically acclaimed books of the year—
Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live.
The Boston Globe calls Lit a book that “reminds us not only how compelling personal stories can be, but how, in the hands of a master, they can transmute into the highest art." The New York Times Book Review calls it “a master class on the art of the memoir” in its Top 10 Books of 2009 Citation. Michiko Kakutani calls it “a book that lassos you, hogties your emotions and wont let you go” in her New York Times review. And Susan Cheever states, simply, that Lit is “the best book about being a woman in America I have read in years."
In addition to the New York Times, Lit was named a Best Book of 2009 by the New Yorker (Reviewer Favorite), Entertainment Weekly (Top 10), Time (Top 10), the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Christian Science Monitor, Slate, the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Seattle Times.
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“A brutally honest, sparkling story.” < i=""> Glamour <>
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“There isnt a single false note in Lit.” Carmela Ciuraru, < i=""> Christian Science Monitor <>
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“Mary Karr restores memoir forms dignity with Lit.” < i=""> Vanity Fair <>
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“In a gravelly, ground-glass-under-your-heel voice that can take you from laughter to awe in a few sentences, Karr has written the best book about being a woman in America I have read in years.” Susan Cheever, < i=""> New York Times Book Review <>
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“A redemptive, painfully funny story.” Bob Minzesheimer, < i=""> USA Today <>
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“Karr movingly depicts her halting journey into AA, making it clear her grit and spirit remain intact.” Michelle Green, < i=""> People <> , 3 ½ out of 4 stars
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“Lit matches its predecessors in candor and outstrips them in insight.” < i=""> Commonweal <>
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“Karrs sharp and funny sensibility won me over to her previous two volumes, but what wins me over to Lit is the way her acute self-awareness conquers any hint that hers is the only version of this story…. Karr is as funny as ever.” Valery Sayers, < i=""> Washington Post <>
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“Her tale is riveting, her style clear-eyed and frank. That Karr survived the emotional and physical journey she regales her readers with to become the evenhanded, self-disciplined writer she is today is arguably nothing short of a miracle, and readers of her previous two books wont be disappointed.” < i=""> Library Journal <>
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“With this third book Karr has managed to raise the bar higher still on the genre of memoir.” Steve Ross, < i=""> Huffington Post <>
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“An absolute gem that secures Karrs place as one of the best memoirists of her generation. . . . [She] writes with a singular combination of poetic grace and Texan verve.” < i=""> Kirkus Reviews <> , starred review
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“Riveting.” < i=""> Redbook Magazine <>
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“Searing. . . . A book that lassos you, hogties your emotions and wont let you go. . . . Chronicles with searching intelligence, humor and grace the authors slow, sometimes exhilarating, sometimes painful discovery of her vocation and her voice as a poet and writer.” Michiko Kakutani, < i=""> New York Times <>
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“Mary Karr has never lacked for material. But shes always delivered on the craft side, too, with her poets gift for show-and-tell.” Elizabeth Foy Larsen, < i=""> Minneapolis Star Tribune <>
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“Mary Karr sparked a memoir revival with The Liars Clubnow shes back with Lit to describe how she turned those early troubles into literary gold.” < i=""> Body + Soul <>
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“Karr could tell you whats on her grocery list, and its humor would make you bust a gut, its unexpected insights would make you think and her pitch-perfect command of our American vernacular might even take your breath away…. [Karr] holds the position of grande dame memoirista.” Samantha Dunn, < i=""> Los Angeles Times <>
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“[Karrs] poetic sensibility infuses every sentence of her story with an alliterative and symbolic energy, conjuring echoes of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, and occasionally, Sylvia Plath.” < i=""> Publishers Weekly <>
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“Scrappy, gut-wrenching. . . . Irresistible. . . . [Written] with trademark wit, precision, and unfailing courage.” Pam Houston, < i=""> O Magazine <>
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“As irresistible as it is unflinchingly honest. . . . With grace, saltiness and profanity galore, Karr undeniably re-establishes herself as one of our finest memoirists and storytellers.” Melanie Gideon, < i=""> San Francisco Chronicle <>
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“Dazzling. . . . Lit reminds us not only how compelling personal stories can be, but how, in the hands of a master, they can transmute into the highest art.” Rebecca Steinitz, < i=""> Boston Globe <>
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“[A] radiant, rueful, rip-roaring book. . . .Warm enough to burn a hole in your heart.” Ken Tucker, < i=""> Entertainment Weekly <>
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“[Karr] continues to delight with her signature dark humor and pitch-perfect metaphors delivering large doses of wit and painful insights. . . . There are plenty of memoirs about being drunk, but this one has Karrs voice-both sure-footed and breezy-behind it.” Beth Greenfield, < i=""> Time Out New York <>
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“Mary Karr restores memoir forms dignity with Lit.” < i=""> Vanity Fair <>
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“Riveting.” < i=""> Redbook Magazine <>
Synopsis
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.
About the Author
Mary Karr's first memoir, The Liars' Club, kick-started a memoir revolution and won nonfiction prizes from PEN and the Texas Institute of Letters. Also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, it rode high on the New York Timesbestseller list for over a year, becoming an annual "best book" there and for The New Yorker, People, and Time. Recently Entertainment Weeklyrated it number four in the top one hundred books of the past twenty-five years. Her second memoir, Cherry, which was excerpted in The New Yorker, also hit bestseller and "notable book" lists at the New York Timesand dozens of other papers nationwide. A Guggenheim Fellow in poetry, Karr has won Pushcart Prizes for both verse and essays. Other grants include the Whiting Award and Radcliffe's Bunting Fellowship. She is the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University.