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Mary Karr’s “Lit”

I finished “Lit” by Mary Karr just over a week ago. I’m nervous when writing about a book more than a few days after finishing it. I’m the kind of reader who tends to forget whole portions of even the books that I enjoy the most. In my defense, I do retain strong mental files of particularly riveting scenes.

This is the third of Mary Karr’s memoirs. I was introduced to (and loved) her “The Liar’s Club” when it made the ALA Notable Books list in the mid 1990’s. I confess that I didn’t finish the second, “Cherry.”

Karr is a well-regarded poet and professor. But it didn’t come easy. “The Liar’s Club” tells about her crazy childhood in Texas, with a mother suffering from mental illness and an alcoholic father. But one-sentence summary doesn’t begin to convey the richness of language, story and affection that her parents provided. Her storytelling seems always to reflect that intense Southern background, well-chosen words rollicking with energy.

In “Lit” she turns to her own demons of alcoholism and depression. Karr married a fellow writer, the son of a wealthy East Coast family, and when they had a son together, things seemed destined for happiness. Karr finds herself drinking steadily as she cares for her colicky baby, and eventually she sees that she can’t just give that up. Quite a bit of the book happens amid the tension of her knowledge of her problem and her unwillingness to give up extreme self-medication. When she does give in, she bolsters her resolve with a turn to religion, to Roman Catholicism.

The scene I’ll remember from “Lit” is Karr up in the middle of the night carrying her crying baby, her unfinished drink from earlier in the evening pulling her into the kitchen, where she craves what she’ll feel when she swallows what remains. That’s not the “madonna and child” that we expect.

Karr addresses the skepticism that she expects many of her writing friends will heap on the 12-step process, and on religion. Early on, she seems almost apologetic that she’s finding the language of recovery helpful, even effective. As she continues, she conveys greater comfort there.

I’ll certainly recommend this to friends who enjoy memoirs–and Karr continues to be one of the best memoirists around. I’ll be interested to hear what friends who’ve struggled themselves with addiction and mental illness will say about “Lit.” But I don’t want to convey that this is limited just to narrow segments of readers. Karr excels in memoir. She crafts her story in such a way that it is much more than just her own.

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