A trenchant memoir of a troubled American childhood from the child's point of view describes growing up in an East Texas refinery town, life in the midst of turbulent family of drunks and liars, a schoolyard rape, and other dark secrets. Reprint. 75,000 first printing. NYT.
The Liars' Club: A Memoir
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
There is a newer edition of this item:
|
Book Description
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Product Description
From Amazon
In this funny, razor-edged memoir, Mary Karr, a prize-winning poet and critic, looks back at her upbringing in a swampy East Texas refinery town with a volatile, defiantly loving family. She recalls her painter mother, seven times married, whose outlaw spirit could tip into psychosis; a fist swinging father who spun tales with his cronies - dubbed the Liars' Club; and a neighborhood rape when she was eight. An inheritance was squandered, endless bottles emptied, and guns leveled at the deserving and undeserving. With a row authenticity stripped of self pity,and a poet's eye for the lyrical detail, Karr shows us a "terrific family of liars and drunks...redeemed by a slow unearthing of truth."
From Publishers Weekly
Poet Karr's NBCC nominated memoir of her East Texas childhood is a blackly comic tale of a family prone to alcoholism, violence and insanity.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
I found Karr's account about her upbringing in a very dysfunctional middle-class American family both disturbing and rewarding. In the first instance, what she vividly describes about the many 'skeletons' in her parents' closet is the obvious build-up of unresolved tension and anger from previous generations. How they deal with these mounting concerns is to simply deny their existence and carry on their own private wars of revenge by hurting each other and the next generation. The outcome is nothing short of tragic sordidness: rape, molestation, infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse, and deceit. Many of the adults, like Mary's dad, belong to a fraternity of liars that informally meet to keep up the appearances that everything is fine in the here and now. Where the story redeems itself is at the end when Mary learns some very important facts that help clarify her parents' individual and collective struggles. While many of the unresolved hurts of their past can never be fully resolved because their origins are mired too deeply in a distant quagmire of guilt, at least Mary and her mother have the glorious opportunity to break with the past and move forward with a new life. Karr handles this delicate subject area of intergenerational strife with great dignity and candor. I recommend it to anyone who is bogged down with trying to make sense of a blighted past.
By Marianne
Format:Paperback
This book was all but interesting to read. I had such a difficult time finishing this book, which was for class. I found myself skipping over paragraphs many times and not missing a thing. I had to make myself finish this book. This is one of the most boring, poorly written, and un-interesting books I have ever read.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Juliet Blake
Format:Paperback
The majority of this memoir recounts a period in the author's childhood where she was around 5 years old, or thereabouts. As I was reading this book, I kept going around and around about how much of this is downright fabricated and in fact the work of a very skillful writer? Yet all the loose ends tie up at the end. Hmm, don't know what to think.
It's not a pretty story and not for the faint of heart. I can be a pretty tough old bird, and some of her descriptions were downright shocking. This book was recommended to me by an author, and I was told it had one funny one-liner after the next, flat out great writing--read it immediately! I didn't want to tell this person, that I didn't laugh but once (the humor is dark) and I thought, Geez, this writer should be put in the corner with Salinger and Henry Miller (w/o all the four-letter obscenities) as far as salty prose goes. If that is your cup of tea, then give this book a try. After all is said and done, it is a page-turner, it keeps your interest, and even has a sort of moving twist at the end. It's a well-written book; the style will not be for everyone.
Want to see more reviews on this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 210 reviews
4.1 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Horrible Childhood, Reported with Youthful Perspective and Adult...
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... Read more
Published on Oct 7 2006 by Donald Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny writing, down-to-earth style
I thought I was sick of daughters-with-crazy-mothers (often from the South) books, but this one sucked me in with its wit and candor. Read more
Published on May 27 2004
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disturbing Fiction
This book is fiction, not a memoir. The author writes that her mother was in a hurry to marry her Dad because she was already 30. Read more
Published on April 6 2004
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow--just Wow
If you don't own a copy of The Liars' Club, your collection is incomplete. This is by far the smartest, ballsiest, sassiest, best-written memoir I've read. Read more
Published on Mar 4 2004 by L. D. Widmer
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Memoir You Will Ever Read
Mary Karr had to go through hell so you could read a very cool book. That's one way to look at this opus, an exploration of the author's East Texas girlhood and the collapsing... Read more
Published on Jan 23 2004 by Bill Slocum
2.0 out of 5 stars
Southern re-fried chicken
Karr has a gift for the sort of "colorful" Southern writing Yankees can't seem to get enough of. Read more
Published on Dec 8 2003
2.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining, but didn't enrapt me...
...like the memoir Blackbird and Still Waters by Jennifer Lauck. Those books were so well written and much more believeable in the way it is written from a child's perspective. Read more
Published on Sep 16 2003
5.0 out of 5 stars
A feisty, resilient little girl
*The Liar's Club* is the first of two autobiographies by poet and professor, Mary Karr, covering the period between her earliest childhood memories to early adolescence. Read more
Published on Sep 9 2003 by Angela Richardson
2.0 out of 5 stars
Don't understand the hype
I picked up this book because of several recommendations and the popular good press. But, after 40 pages, I struggled to see what was so good about it. Read more
Published on Aug 7 2003
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hard to read, harder not to
Funny, sharp, pitiless, volatile - and more. There aren't enough words to describe the content of Mary Karr's memoir of her upbringing in a seething, sweaty, swampy East Texas... Read more
Published on Aug 3 2003 by Peggy Vincent
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
