Karr's hard-edged poetic voice made The Liars' Club one of my favorite books. In Lit, the voice is just as searing and lovely but perhaps not as consistent. The childhood digressions--nods to her previous works--were the weakest portions of the narrative, but they were brief; moreover, they were easily forgiven when bookmarking transcendent scenes such as one in which a group of illiterate women remind the author of the universality of good poetry. I highly recommend this book to all readers, bu More...

Reading this for my book club.

O.M.G.

If there is a genre I hate, it is that of addicts telling their life stories ... yes, even when they come out Christian at the other end. Just like a bad movie made for Christian purposes, an angsty book told for Christian purposes does nothing for me. First give me good art (story) I say, then worry about what else is in it.

It isn't that I don't have sympathy for the people themselves, it is that their books inevitably seem to be all about them (me, me, me .. More...

i'm not sure what to say about this book. i LOVED the liar's club & was so excited to read cherry, the second in her memoir trilogy. & even though that book is about coming of age adolescent girlhood, the kind of thing i love to read, i found it depressing (even more than ! or in a less appealing way or something), & the writing was too "poetic" for my tastes. therefore, i procrastinated for ages before cracking this book, the third of the memoir trilogy, open. i knew it was about ma More...

Okay - I know this author has won awards and I am supposed to have thought this book was wonderful, but I didn't. I swear I could hear her thumbing through the thesaurus to find words we do not use in normal conversation. Keep in mind she is a poet by trade, not a nonfiction writer, so the disjointed nature of her autobiography is to be somewhat expected. Yes, she did have a hard life as a child and her alcohol abuse made her less than a great mom but I had a hard time not telling to her to grow More...

On its funniest and its most harrowing pages, Mary Karr's Lit reminds me of Augusten Burroughs's Dry; both sarcastic, heartbroken protagonists are helplessly addicted to alcohol, romantically incapacitated, and surrounded by saccharine morons. In moron-land, Karr escapes mental institution bureaucracy in time to attend a literary reception in her honor by using guile. The institute's Nurse Ratchett "has a tendency to bring up penis envy every session, and I swear that this time, when she does, I More...

I read a lot of memoirs. There's something about peering into someone else's life that gives me a chance to pause and reflect on mine. Lit was no exception. It appears to be brutually honest, although it may not be since it's based on the recollections of an alcoholic. However, Karr does not paint herself to be a saint for having gotten herself into recovery or blame her past for her descent into alcoholism and depression. There were times as I read that I didn't want to read anymore. I wanted t More...

Lit is the first book I've read by Mary Karr and apparently should have begun with The Liar's Club. Apparently i'll be working backwards on her life story. I suppose that's what any of us who attempt to chronicle and make sense of our experiences do...we work backwards.

In some ways Karr works backwards and forwards and leaves large gaps. But still, I like memoir and honesty and found Karr to be raw honest and funny. It had glowing reviews while others fault her for be self-absorbed in this late More...

Karr follows up her adolescent memoirs Liar's Club and Cherry with her memoir of alcholism and recovery. Karr writes with such self-deprecating wit and Southern charm that it's hard to believe we aren't good, long friends. There's plenty to admire here, but I was often irritated by her fairly superficial religious views. Her conversion feels real and necessary and very much part of the reason why she's not currently in an alcoholic coma or dead. Still, her version of faith is a wee bit too close More...

This felt hastily written and not well edited. Maybe the author just ran out of good material. In large part, it’s a recollection of alcoholism and/or depression and recovery that isn’t that different or more inspiring than many other so-so examples of this genre.

The author describes many of her fellow mentally troubled fellow patients in Maclean hospital, or in her AA group, but reducing each person to a few paragraphs and without developing much connection to her story makes it seem like the More...

Suspect the world does not need another review of Mary Karr’s newest memoir, but I do have some scattered thoughts on it. I feel, however, that they must be prefaced by multiple caveats, which may be the scattered thoughts in disguise. Caveat one: I’ve not read any of her other books. Have seen occasional poems of hers in magazines. Caveat two: She studied with a poet I also studied with, who makes a couple of appearances in this book as she begins to ascend into the poetry firmament. Caveat thr More...

This is the second Mary Karr memoir I have read and it was as good, for different reasons, as "The Liar's Club." In this book, the author is writing about her adult life, specifically about her experiences as an alcohol, recovering alcoholic, and new Catholic. I have read too many books in the last year or two about women in middle age finding themselves and finding God, but I have to say that Mary Karr is one of the more engaging and down-to-earth authors of this genre. She really seems to take More...

Phew. Where to start on this one? Karr's memoir is as razor sharp as that adjective could ever more accurately describe. It is an unsettling exploration of what we can become in the most desolate and desperate isolation of our own making, and for those who have struggled with even a fraction of what Karr has faced in her life, her writing is so piercingly true, so resonate of our shared humanity, that the narrative transportation is a sort of shamanic therapy without the medical bill ... or hope More...

I'm not sure I am going to finish this one. Karr writes of her husband "If he hates a book on page one, he'll nonetheless finish it, for he's made the commitment." Well I decided to try to get to the 50% mark before I decided that I am not willing to commit to this book. It may just be that I'm really not into memoirs. I think it really came down to the fact that I did not like Karr or care what happened to her. But there were some laugh out loud moments. I could see why people would be fans of More...

A harrowing journey into an alcoholic’s addiction, readers find themselves rooting for the supremely honest and witty Mary Karr.
It’s an explosive, surprising memoir written with a unique beat of cadence and prose.
Her terrible childhood is described in another memoir, The Liar’s Club (hopefully I’ll be reading this soon). After shocking events that are briefly mentioned in this account, she found refuge in drugs. Eventually, she was scared straight and went to college. Her parents were dysfunc More...

Mary Karr's Lit is my new favorite memoir. (I'm not sure what my old favorite memoir was.) That I would love Lit seems pretty unlikely. I confess my gender bias - I'm more likely to read a man's memoir than a woman's. Add to this the facts that Karr's childhood was a whirlwind of abuse, violence, insanity, and other varieties of dysfunction, she was an atheist from childhood, had a wild and rebellious adolescence, married rich, became an alcoholic and a divorcee, sank into depression to the poin More...

This was so much better than The Liars' Club! Childhood memories will always be more disjointed than those from adulthood, sure; and Texas slang has more place in a memoir about Texans; but I found Karr's voice in The Liars' Club to be frustrating and at times even confusing, as she jumped from highfalutin poetry allusions to Texas slang. Here, both are present, but they are woven together seamlessly.

I really enjoyed this but I would like to second the observation made by a Goodreads reviewer w More...

I have read Mary Karr's previous two books -- Cherry and The Liars' Club -- a long time ago and remembered liking them but didn't remember why. Lit actually started out a little slow, in my opinion, but got good quick. What I liked about it:

*Her struggle to find a higher power in the process of getting sober. She was SO opposed to the idea of God at all that it is hard to believe she came full circle and is now able to believe in God completely. (How did she DO that? I'm where she started, and I More...

Terribly self indulgent and I find these types of memoirs irritating. The author is often surly and indirectly blames others for her crappy life (Not so crappy in my eye but she keeps trying to make it sound like it was crappy) Gee, I only earn 90K a year. Oh, my upper crust poet hubby is emotionally unavailable and is too devoted to his work so he can avoid me. ME. ME. ME.

I admit a memoir in itself is self indulgent but this is Mary Karr’s 3rd memoir. Is it that she has no imagination to create More...

Who is Mary Karr? A memoirist—this is her third. She is now 57 years old. She is a professor of literature at Syracuse University. She is a published poet. She is a single mother. She is famous—given credit for the huge increase in the popularity of the memoir as reader fodder and consequently rich, presumably a 1%er. She is a “free-willing” Catholic and a practicing alcoholic in recovery. In other words – Believes strongly in the power of God & prayers, and sober and attends AA meetings. Sh More...

I love Mary Karr's memoirs. I find her use of language amazing, her life story captivating and heart warming. Lit is actually my favorite of the three books. She is honest and funny about her struggles with alcohol and how she got turned on to religion. So why only 4 stars? Well, there were some details left out that I really wanted to learn more about. For example, at one point near the beginning, she mentions that she went to England for a few months in her early 20's and during that time man More...

There's a conceit in every line here, so supple a writer Ms. Karr is. And it's marvelous. What a lively, feisty life Ms. Karr has had. I loved reading this book. Her writing so affectionately executed, so colorful and alive as only a Southern gal could make. (It makes me wonder where I was with her first two books). I know in the back of my mind I wanted to read those...but I am so glad I made it to this.

I was entranced from the very first page--and it gives reads like the over-popular, THE GLAS More...

I love memoir, but I'm not a complete pushover either. Surreally twisted life experiences vividly told don't always win me over. I hated Running with Scissors to the point of fury. But I really liked Karr's first memoir, The Liar's Club, and when I heard an interview with Karr about this book my interest was piqued.

I believe my reaction to Lit was different than to any other book I've read. I've always believed good nonfiction (or fiction or poetry . . .) can change a reader, but I haven't actua More...

It’s almost impossible to believe that someone could rise out of the ashes of the broken home Mary Karr came from. Her upbringing and early home life left absolutely nothing to the imagination. From parents who can’t seem to help themselves enough to help their own children, to the eventual replication in her own life and motherhood, Mary Karr’s story is gripping. A not-so-feel-good, but yet triumphant journey that proves anything is possible.

I need to start by saying that memoirs are generally More...

"Lit" continues Karr's chronicle of her dysfunctional life that started with "The Liars Club" and continued with "Cherry." The publicity on this book said that she rewrote the book seven times. Here's what it feels like: She rewrote the book so many times that the last draft was considerably less polished than the prose of "The Liars Club." The incidents are well chosen--a major feat in a memoir--but many sentences feel half finished. Maybe her editor saved her first book and deserted her on thi More...

I wanted to like it. Because it was about alcoholism. Because it was set in Cambridge.

And it started out all right -- Karr has a good writing style, she's witty, she's interesting. But then there's the lack of dialogue. The lack of tension building scenes. The lack of emotional investment because I don't really feel like I know her, or any of the people she knows. (Does she even know the people she knows? Or is she always just in her own head?)

So then she gets totally wishy-washy about this God More...

Pros: Mary Karr can WRITE. Wow.
Cons: Disjointed and oddly paced; self-serving "conversion" & ending wrapped up too fast.
The Bottom Line: Read her first two memoirs before this one; she is one gifted writer!

Poetry? Pass the Memoirs, Please
I'd like to preface this review by stating that this is my first Mary Karr book. She has two books prior to this, The Liar's Club and Cherry, both memoirs. I picked it up on the recommendation of a buddy who has a Creating Writing MFA, who said that I'd like More...

In her 1995 bestseller The Liar’s Club, Karr wrote about her chaotic early life. Cherry, in 2000, dealt with her adolescence and high school years. Lit reprises the highlights of the earlier books and covers Karr’s early adulthood, marriage, motherhood, and early middle age, with her growing alcoholism and her slow, erratic and precarious recovery the through line.

Karr reluctantly turns to Alcoholics Anonymous and prayer as she tries to get sober. Almost immediately, good things begin to happen, More...

A book based on the inferno of alcoholism and madness. This summation says it all, "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.

Karr is a great writer and tells the horror one goes through and she pours out her heart. I have not re More...

Well, now I know what happened to all the emotion I didn't hear in Mary Karr's voice in The Liars' Club, the story of her blighted childhood. She stuffed it all down until adulthood. This book is one long screech of pain.

To me, this Mary Karr is more genuine than the author of Liar's Club. That memoir was very stylized -- down-home Texas tall tale, outsized, but to me, antiseptic. In Lit, Mary Karr emotes. She italicizes, she all-caps, she streams exclamation points. She hisses, she claws, she s More...

As a memoir of alcoholism and a successful escape from it, Lit doesn’t lack for interesting details. However, it also doesn’t delve too much into the source of her alcoholism (sounds like previous memoirs addressed her tumultuous childhood, which likely contributed to her drinking), nor does it let the reader in too close. Overall, the book feels like the author is inviting us in to her life but then pulls a curtain to hide the mess in the backroom. The biggest drawback though is her constant la More...