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Lit
a memoir
First published 2009 · 386 pages
A darkly hilarious, fiercely unsentimental plunge into the abyss of addiction and the messy, miraculous climb back out.
What it feels like
Reading this memoir feels like sitting at a diner at 2 AM with the smartest, funniest, most brutally honest person you know while they tell you the worst things they’ve ever done. The pace is brisk, driven by a crackling, Texas-twanged voice that refuses to wallow in self-pity even as it navigates the darkest depths of alcoholism and psychiatric wards. The mood is gritty and chaotic, yet pierced with moments of startling, poetic clarity and dark hilarity. It’s an unsentimental exploration of inherited trauma, the terror of motherhood, and the reluctant surrender to faith. This book will deeply satisfy readers who want their redemption stories served with a side of lacerating wit, zero platitudes, and sentences that hit like a physical blow.
- Mood
- raw
- chaotic
- gritty
- cathartic
- Tone
- irreverent
- darkly comedic
- unflinching
- self-deprecating
- wry
- Pace
- brisk
- Themes
- the messiness of recovery · inherited trauma · unconventional faith · the terror of motherhood · art and addiction
- The writing
- Crackling with Texas vernacular, sharp wit, and poetic precision, the sentences are as muscular as they are lyrical.
- The arc
- A chaotic, desperate descent into the abyss of addiction gives way to a hard-won, surprisingly spiritual, and grounded redemption.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave unsentimental, darkly funny memoirs about hitting rock bottom and clawing back up, especially those interested in the writing life.
Content notes
- alcoholism
- suicidal ideation
- psychiatric hospitalization
- childhood trauma
About the book
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.
Description from Open Library.
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The Liars' ClubMary KarrA fiercely funny, unsentimental plunge into a chaotic Texas childhood where storytelling is the only survival skill.
CherryMary KarrA sassy, restless dive into the chaotic thrills and paralyzing doubts of teenage rebellion.
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Running with ScissorsAugusten BurroughsA hilariously horrifying plunge into a childhood where the adults are the lunatics and survival requires a razor-sharp sense of irony.
Prozac nationElizabeth WurtzelA torrential, unapologetic plunge into the messy, chaotic reality of coming of age under the crushing weight of clinical depression.