Mary Karr Popular Books

Mary Karr Biography & Facts

Mary Karr (born January 16, 1955) is an American poet, essayist and memoirist from East Texas. She is widely noted for her 1995 bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University. Early life and education Karr was born in Groves, Texas, on January 16, 1955, and lived there until she relocated to Los Angeles in 1972. Her parents, Charlie Marie Moore and Pete Karr, were alcoholics, and she was a frequent partaker of drug abuse growing up. Karr attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota for two years and met poet Etheridge Knight, one of her mentors, during her time there. After a respite from school to participate in the anti-apartheid movement, Karr attended Goddard College and graduated with a terminal degree in fine arts. Career Memoirs Karr's memoir The Liars' Club, published in 1995, was a New York Times bestseller for over a year, and was named one of the year's best books. It explores her deeply troubled childhood, most of which was spent in a gritty industrial section of Southeast Texas in the 1960s. Karr was encouraged to write her personal history by her friend Tobias Wolff, but has said she only took up the project when her marriage fell apart.She followed the book with a second memoir, Cherry (2000), about her late adolescence and early womanhood.A third memoir, Lit: A Memoir, which she says details "my journey from blackbelt sinner and lifelong agnostic to unlikely Catholic," came out in November 2009. The memoir describes Karr's time as an alcoholic and the salvation she found in her conversion to Catholicism. She describes herself as a cafeteria Catholic. Poetry Karr won a 1989 Whiting Award for her poetry. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005 and has won Pushcart prizes for both her poetry and essays. Karr has published five volumes of poetry: Abacus (Wesleyan University Press, CT, 1987, in its New Poets series), The Devil's Tour (New Directions NY, 1993, an original TPB), Viper Rum (New Directions NY, 1998, an original TPB), Sinners Welcome (HarperCollins, NY, 2006), and Tropic of Squalor (HarperCollins, NY, 2018). Her poems have appeared in major literary magazines such as Poetry, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly.Karr's Pushcart Award-winning essay, "Against Decoration", was originally published in the quarterly review Parnassus (1991) and later reprinted in Viper Rum. In "Against Decoration", Karr took a stand in favor of content over poetic style. She argued emotions need to be directly expressed and clarity should be a watch-word: characters are too obscure, the presented physical world is often "foggy" (that is imprecise), references are "showy" (both non-germane and overused), metaphors overshadow expected meaning, and techniques of language (polysyllables, archaic words, intricate syntax, "yards of adjectives") only "slow a reader's understanding". Another essay, "Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer", was originally published in Poetry (2005). Karr tells of moving from agnostic alcoholic to baptized Catholic of the decidedly "cafeteria" kind, yet one who prays twice daily with loud fervor from her "foxhole". In this essay, Karr argues that poetry and prayer arise from the same sources within us. Other In May 2015, Karr served as the commencement speaker at the 161st commencement for Syracuse University. Personal life Karr was married to poet Michael Milburn for thirteen years. Some time after their divorce, she had begun dating author David Foster Wallace. Karr spoke out about Wallace's abusive behaviour, which included obsessive stalking, throwing a coffee table at her, and harassing her five-year-old son.Although she has converted to Catholicism, Karr supports views that are at odds with the Catholic Church teaching such as abortion (to which she is pro-choice), and has advocated for women's ordination to the priesthood. Karr has described herself as a feminist since the age of twelve. Awards and honors 1989 Whiting Award 1995 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for The Liars' Club 2004 Guggenheim FellowshipWorks MemoirsThe Liars' Club, Viking Adult; (1995) ISBN 0-670-85053-5 Cherry: A Memoir, Penguin Books; Reissue edition (2001) ISBN 0-14-100207-7 Lit: A Memoir, HarperCollins; (2009) ISBN 0-060-596996 PoetryAbacus, Wesleyan (1987) The Devil's Tour, New Directions (1993) ISBN 0-8112-1231-9 Viper Rum, Penguin (2001) ISBN 0-14-200018-3 Sinners Welcome, HarperCollins (2006) ISBN 0-06-077654-4 Tropic of Squalor, HarperCollins (2018) ISBN 0-06-2699822 Stories"Learner's Permit" (excerpt from Cherry). Nerve, w/o date. Non-FictionThe Art of Memoir, Harper; (2015) ISBN 0-062-22306-2References External links Official website Paris Review Interview Mary Karr Author Page on harpercollins.com Profile at The Whiting Foundation Mary Karr, Remembering The Years She Spent 'Lit', November 3, 2009, NPR, Fresh Air Mary Karr biography at enotes.com NPR Interview with Karr for new poetry collection Sinners Welcome Salon Interview, May 1997 Syracuse University - Faculty Biography page (former, archived) Syracuse University - Faculty Biography page (current) Rain Taxi Interview, Spring 2010 Mary Karr Talks 'Tropic of Squalor,' Grinding Through Drafts, and Cellos, The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara. Discover the Mary Karr popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Mary Karr books.

Best Seller Mary Karr Books of 2024

  • Sinners Welcome synopsis, comments

    Sinners Welcome

    Mary Karr

    Mary Karr describes herself as a blackbelt sinner, and this her fourth collection of poems traces her improbable journey from the inferno of a tormented childhood into a resolutel...

  • Why We Write synopsis, comments

    Why We Write

    Meredith Maran

    Twenty of America's bestselling authors share tricks, tips, and secrets of the successful writing life.Anyone who's ever sat down to write a novel or even a story knows how exhilar...

  • Inheritance synopsis, comments

    Inheritance

    Dani Shapiro

    NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the acclaimed author of Signal Fires and host of the hit podcast Family Secrets: a memoir about the staggering family secret uncovered by a genealog...

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    From the Ashes

    Jesse Thistle

    This #1 internationally bestselling and awardwinning memoir about overcoming trauma, prejudice, and addiction by a MétisCree author as he struggles to find a way back to himself an...

  • Let Me Explain You synopsis, comments

    Let Me Explain You

    Annie Liontas

    An unforgettable novel about a Greek American family and its enigmatic patriarch from a significant new voice in contemporary literature. “Hilarious yet rich…This debut by Annie Li...

  • The Journalist and the Murderer synopsis, comments

    The Journalist and the Murderer

    Janet Malcolm

    A seminal work and examination of the psychopathology of journalism. Using a strange and unprecedented lawsuit by a convicted murder againt the journalist who wrote a book about hi...

  • Dear Mr. You synopsis, comments

    Dear Mr. You

    Mary-Louise Parker

    The bestselling, wonderfully unconventional, “warmly conspiratorial…seriously good” (The New York Times) literary memoir from the awardwinning actress that has received fabulous an...

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    Teaching the Cat to Sit

    Michelle Theall

    A compelling memoir of a gay Catholic woman struggling to find balance between being a daughter and a mother raising her son with a loving partner in the face of discrimination.Fro...

  • Rebel Mother synopsis, comments

    Rebel Mother

    Peter Andreas

    “Those who enjoyed Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle will find much to admire” (Booklist, starred review) in this “thoroughly engrossing” (The New York Times Book Review) memoir a...

  • We Begin Our Ascent synopsis, comments

    We Begin Our Ascent

    Joe Mungo Reed

    “Exceptional...fast and smart, funny and sad, this is an outstanding sports novel, and Joe Mungo Reed is an author to watch” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).Sol and Liz are a coup...

  • My Fair Junkie synopsis, comments

    My Fair Junkie

    Amy Dresner

    In the tradition of Blackout and Permanent Midnight, a darkly funny and revealing debut memoir of one woman's twentyyear battle with sex, drugs, and alcohol addiction, and what hap...

  • Like Family synopsis, comments

    Like Family

    Paula McLain

    An astonishing memoir that "demonstrates the true meaning of family" from the author of The Paris Wife and When the Stars Go Dark, detailing the years...

  • Gente que cuenta synopsis, comments

    Gente que cuenta

    Anatxu Zabalbeascoa

    Gente que cuenta reúne a algunas de las personalidades más relevantes de nuestro tiempo con una trayectoria detrás en muchas disciplinas: literatura, diseño, música o deporte. La a...