From Powells.com
Mary
Karr determined at a very early age to be a poet she was not a practical
girl. Neither, though, was she a typical aspiring poet. Angry, gutsy, quick-witted,
and rebellious or, as one reviewer put it, "an adept little shit-kicker"
young Mary Karr seemed more suited for bartending at a biker bar than writing
artful verse. But she knew what she wanted and, eventually, ended up an accomplished
poet at a respected university. When Karr hit a bad spell, though, and found herself
broke and in desperate need of a car, her agent suggested she try writing a novel
or memoir (poetry volumes don't generally set the bestsellers lists on fire).
She agreed, and the advance she received paid for a Toyota. But Karr also received
much more than she bargained for. Readers around the world loved Karr's candid,
colorful account of her tumultuous childhood in an East Texas refinery town, which
quickly became an international bestseller. The Liar's Club is also generally credited with kicking off the
memoir craze that dominated publishing throughout the nineties. Following up such
a success is a tricky maneuver, but Karr's sequel was received with enthusiasm
by both readers and critics. The Liars' Club has been called "one
of the best books ever written about growing up female (or growing up, period)
in America" (Salon.com), and in Cherry, Karr brings the same
fierce honesty, shrewd intelligence, and nuts and bolts storytelling ability to
bear on adolescence and sexual awakening. Farley, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
From Mary Karr, author of the bestselling
The Liars' Club: the vibrant often hilarious story of her tumultuous teens and sexual coming-of-age
Mary Karr told the prizewinning tale of her hardscrabble Texas childhood with enough literary verve to spark a renaissance in memoir. The Liars' Club rode the top of The New York Times bestseller list for more than a year, and publications ranging from The New Yorker to People magazine picked it as one of the best books of the year. But it left people wondering: How'd that scrappy kid make it outa there? Cherry dares to tell that story. Karr picks up the trail and dashes off into her teen years with customary sass, only to run up against the paralyzing self-doubt of a girl in bloom.
In this long-awaited sequel, we see Karr ultimately trying to run from the thrills and terrors of her sexual awakening by butting up against authority in all its forms. She lands all too often in the principal's office and in one instance a jail cell. Looking for a lover or heart's companion who'll make her feel whole, she hooks up with an outrageous band of surfers and heads, wanna-be yogis and bona fide geniuses.
Karr's edgy, brilliant prose careens between hilarity and tragedy, and Cherry takes readers to a place never truly explored deep inside a girl's stormy, ardent adolescence. Parts will leave you gasping with laughter. But its soaring close proves that from even the smokiest beginnings a solid self can form, one capable of facing down all manner of monsters.
Synopsis
In the long-awaited sequel to "The Liar's Club", Karr picks up the trail of her hardscrabble Texas childhood and dashes off into her teen years with customary sass, only to run up against the paralyzing self-doubt of a girl in bloom. The book's soaring close proves that from even the smokiest beginnings a solid self can form, one capable of facing down all manners of monsters.
Synopsis
In the long-awaited sequel to The Liar's Club, Karr picks up the trail of her hardscrabble Texas childhood and dashes off into her teen years with customary sass, only to run up against the paralyzing self-doubt of a girl in bloom. The book's soaring close proves that from even the smokiest beginnings a solid self can form, one capable of facing down all manners of monsters.