Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A heartwarming book about a troubled childhood, 18 Jan 2000
In a similar vein to ANGELA'S ASHES, this book vividly recalls details of the author's childhood with a capricious, artistic Mum and a downbeat Dad, both far too fond of the bottle. Mary brings a poetic insight and language to the story and there's a heartwarming ending. Read it!
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Horrible Childhood, Reported with Youthful Perspective and Adult Objectivity and Humor, 7 Oct 2006
Many people have pointed out that humor is a good way to keep from crying all the time. Author Mary Karr has clearly gained that perspective as she describes one of the worst upbringings you could have short of being abducted and sold to be an abused female slave at age six. How Ms. Karr and her sister managed to become functioning adults is the main mystery that this book helps explain. They were both highly intelligent, brave, aggressive and not easily intimidated. Those admirable qualities shine through the dingy details.
But if you stand back from your childhood, many of the daily tragedies are pretty funny . . . if you can see those events as happening to someone else who can take it. Ms. Karr clearly has gained that perspective.
The book opens with a strange scene, the author's sharpest memory of her early years. She was seven. The family doctor knelt before her where she sat on a mattress on the bare floor. He was pulling at the hem of her favorite nightgown and inquiring, Show me the marks." There were other strangers milling around in her house and Ms. Karr didn't want to hike up her gown with them around.
Ms. Karr reports that it took three decades for that memory to unfreeze from an isolated scene into a memory of all that occurred. When you find out what preceded it, you'll be emotionally chilled to the core of your soul. The book then goes into flashback mode until the pivotal event resurfaces in full detail about mid-way through the book.
Be prepared for some pretty chilling moments. This is not your fairy godmother's memoir. Ms. Karr was raped, molested, and even found herself at the wrong end of a gun. She experienced moments even more frightening and disturbing than those.
The book's title is quite an ironic one. Her father was a born story teller who paid no attention to the actual truth if that got in the way of a good story. Everyone knew this . . . and that was part of the fun. He liked to get together with his drinking buddies to swap such tales, and Ms. Karr was welcome to join him until she began to develop an adult female shape.
While most will think that's the origin of the title, a closer reading will probably convince you that the reference is to Ms. Karr's family itself, where none of the adults would ever speak the truth about the central facts of their current and past lives. Living in a pretend world was their way of coping with huge sorrow and even greater fears. As they say, not everything was what it was cracked up to be.
If you ever visited small towns in Texas and Colorado during the 1960s, you'll recognize the culture that Ms. Karr loves to lampoon . . . even as her family managed to outrage pretty much everyone around them. She has an amazing ability to be self-affirming in her uniqueness and independence as she describes those days that most of could learn from. You survived if you looked out for yourself. If you didn't look out for yourself, no one else probably would.
Has a family ever engaged in more outrageous and deliberately provocative behavior? Well, not very many. You sense that universal embarrassment that all children feel about their families, but with enough of an emotional distance to bring us into the situation in a way that doesn't overcome us with self-pity.
Among the many unpleasant and tragic events, Ms. Karr sees life as fun, funny and full of potential. It's that joie de vivre that separates this book from the kind of sob story that many such memoirs turn into.
She also sees life as offering the potential for redemption . . . when we face ourselves and the truth.
In addition, Ms. Karr can write very well. She can set a scene, turn a sentence, shape a story and deliver a punch line with crude power. Here's a brief example:
"Daddy's boots scuffed down the steps. The screen banged again, and I heard what I quickly figured out was the glass lasagna casserole shattering on the patio after him. "It's her birthday, you s__ofa______," Mother yelled. Lecia just wound that French twist into a tight coil and said, "Tape Ten, Reel One Thousand: Happy Godd___ Birthday."
Don't miss this book. If you like what you read, I suggest you go on to read Cherry as well, by Ms. Karr. The material isn't as pungent as in The Liar's Club, but the writing is equally wonderful.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A Horrible Childhood, Reported with Youthful Perspective and Adult Objectivity and Humor, 3 Oct 2007
Many people have pointed out that humor is a good way to keep from crying all the time. Author Mary Karr has clearly gained that perspective as she describes one of the worst upbringings you could have short of being abducted and sold to be an abused female slave at age six. How Ms. Karr and her sister managed to become functioning adults is the main mystery that this book helps explain. They were both highly intelligent, brave, aggressive and not easily intimidated. Those admirable qualities shine through the dingy details.
But if you stand back from your childhood, many of the daily tragedies are pretty funny . . . if you can see those events as happening to someone else who can take it. Ms. Karr clearly has gained that perspective.
The book opens with a strange scene, the author's sharpest memory of her early years. She was seven. The family doctor knelt before her where she sat on a mattress on the bare floor. He was pulling at the hem of her favorite nightgown and inquiring, Show me the marks." There were other strangers milling around in her house and Ms. Karr didn't want to hike up her gown with them around.
Ms. Karr reports that it took three decades for that memory to unfreeze from an isolated scene into a memory of all that occurred. When you find out what preceded it, you'll be emotionally chilled to the core of your soul. The book then goes into flashback mode until the pivotal event resurfaces in full detail about mid-way through the book.
Be prepared for some pretty chilling moments. This is not your fairy godmother's memoir. Ms. Karr was raped, molested, and even found herself at the wrong end of a gun. She experienced moments even more frightening and disturbing than those.
The book's title is quite an ironic one. Her father was a born story teller who paid no attention to the actual truth if that got in the way of a good story. Everyone knew this . . . and that was part of the fun. He liked to get together with his drinking buddies to swap such tales, and Ms. Karr was welcome to join him until she began to develop an adult female shape.
While most will think that's the origin of the title, a closer reading will probably convince you that the reference is to Ms. Karr's family itself, where none of the adults would ever speak the truth about the central facts of their current and past lives. Living in a pretend world was their way of coping with huge sorrow and even greater fears. As they say, not everything was what it was cracked up to be.
If you ever visited small towns in Texas and Colorado during the 1960s, you'll recognize the culture that Ms. Karr loves to lampoon . . . even as her family managed to outrage pretty much everyone around them. She has an amazing ability to be self-affirming in her uniqueness and independence as she describes those days that most of could learn from. You survived if you looked out for yourself. If you didn't look out for yourself, no one else probably would.
Has a family ever engaged in more outrageous and deliberately provocative behavior? Well, not very many. You sense that universal embarrassment that all children feel about their families, but with enough of an emotional distance to bring us into the situation in a way that doesn't overcome us with self-pity.
Among the many unpleasant and tragic events, Ms. Karr sees life as fun, funny and full of potential. It's that joie de vivre that separates this book from the kind of sob story that many such memoirs turn into.
She also sees life as offering the potential for redemption . . . when we face ourselves and the truth.
In addition, Ms. Karr can write very well. She can set a scene, turn a sentence, shape a story and deliver a punch line with crude power. Here's a brief example:
"Daddy's boots scuffed down the steps. The screen banged again, and I heard what I quickly figured out was the glass lasagna casserole shattering on the patio after him. "It's her birthday, you s__ofa______," Mother yelled. Lecia just wound that French twist into a tight coil and said, "Tape Ten, Reel One Thousand: Happy Godd___ Birthday."
Don't miss this book. If you like what you read, I suggest you go on to read Cherry as well, by Ms. Karr. The material isn't as pungent as in The Liar's Club, but the writing is equally wonderful.
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by Mary Karr
by Paul Auster
by Broyard
by Lyn Hejinian
