Literature : Memoir

Mary Karrs brilliant debut, THE LIARS CLUB, provided a parade of imitators with the courage that they needed to transform the harrowing anguish of their troubled childhood into literature. With LIT, her third memoir, Karr surges ahead of the pack, displaying the sensibility she has acquired in maturation, even as she documents the process. Having assessed the damage of her childhood and adolescence in her first two books, Karr turns to her recovery, as she charts the healing process which gradually transformed her from a 17-year-old alcoholic masochist into a 50-year-old dutiful Catholic mother. The young Karr tosses in the turbulent wake of her traumatic upbringing, struggling to convince herself of the significance of education even as she drinks herself into an emotional collapse. She describes her religious conversion without resorting to sermons, and finally accepts that redemption may be held in the process of literary confession.