#4 on The New York Times’ list of The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years
The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of a hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation
“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet’s ear.” —Oprah.com
The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all. This unsentimental and profoundly moving account of an apocalyptic childhood is as “funny, lively, and un-put-downable” (USA Today) today as it ever was.
WINNER PEN/Martha Albrand Award
“The essential American story . . . a beauty.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
“Astonishing . . . one of the most dazzling and moving memoirs to come along in years.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“This book is so good I thought about sending it out for a backup opinion. . . . It’s like finding Beethoven in Hoboken. To have a poet’s precision of language and a poet’s insight into people applied to one of the roughest, toughest, ugliest places in America is an astonishing event.” —Molly Ivins, The Nation
“9mm humor, gothic wit, and a stunning clarity of memory within a poet’s vision . . . Karr’s unerring scrutiny of her childhood delivers a story confoundingly real.” —The Boston Sunday Globe
“Overflows with sparkling wit and humor . . . Truth beats powerfully at the heart of this dazzling memoir.” —San Francisco Chronicle
"Mary Karr's God-awful childhood has a calamitous appeal. The choice in the book is between howling misery and howling laughter, and the reader veers toward laughter. Karr has survived to write a drop-dead reply to the question, 'Ma, what was it like when you were a little girl?' " —Time
"This is the real deal; funny, painful, and hotter than Texas in September. This is what the memoir is supposed to be." —Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly
"Elegaic and searching . . . her toughness of spirit, her poetry, her language, her very voice are the agents of rebirth in this difficult, hard-earned journey." —The New York Times Book Review
#4 on The New York Times’ list of The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years
The New York Times bestselling, hilarious tale of a hardscrabble Texas childhood that Oprah.com calls the best memoir of a generation
“Wickedly funny and always movingly illuminating, thanks to kick-ass storytelling and a poet’s ear.” —Oprah.com
The Liars’ Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all. This unsentimental and profoundly moving account of an apocalyptic childhood is as “funny, lively, and un-put-downable” (USA Today) today as it ever was.
Awards
WINNER PEN/Martha Albrand Award
Praise
“The essential American story . . . a beauty.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post Book World
“Astonishing . . . one of the most dazzling and moving memoirs to come along in years.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“This book is so good I thought about sending it out for a backup opinion. . . . It’s like finding Beethoven in Hoboken. To have a poet’s precision of language and a poet’s insight into people applied to one of the roughest, toughest, ugliest places in America is an astonishing event.” —Molly Ivins, The Nation
“9mm humor, gothic wit, and a stunning clarity of memory within a poet’s vision . . . Karr’s unerring scrutiny of her childhood delivers a story confoundingly real.” —The Boston Sunday Globe
“Overflows with sparkling wit and humor . . . Truth beats powerfully at the heart of this dazzling memoir.” —San Francisco Chronicle
"Mary Karr's God-awful childhood has a calamitous appeal. The choice in the book is between howling misery and howling laughter, and the reader veers toward laughter. Karr has survived to write a drop-dead reply to the question, 'Ma, what was it like when you were a little girl?' " —Time
"This is the real deal; funny, painful, and hotter than Texas in September. This is what the memoir is supposed to be." —Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly
"Elegaic and searching . . . her toughness of spirit, her poetry, her language, her very voice are the agents of rebirth in this difficult, hard-earned journey." —The New York Times Book Review
