Lit

Book six of the New York Times Book Review Ten Best Books of 2009.

Lit has number of definitions. Beyond being the past participle of light, there are two that are relevant to this memoir by Mary Karr. One is the abbreviation of literature, as Karr is a poet of some merit and a teacher of the subject at Syracuse University. The other, and perhaps more meaningful to this work, is a synonym for drunkenness. Karr used to get good and tanked.

Lit is the third memoir by Karr. I read the first, The Liars' Club, about her unorthodox childhood in Texas, and it was terrific. I missed the second, Cherry, but am back on board with Lit, which chronicles her life from her college years to the present day. It takes a certain amount of moxie to write a memoir, presuming that people will be interested in your life story, and to write three seems the height of narcissism, but Karr is anything but. Her life has certainly been offbeat and harrowing enough to be published, but above all it is vividly written, in a style that is akin to someone sitting across from you at a diner and telling you their life story.

Karr's parents have been dissected in all of these books, but to recap--her father was a redneck oilman, not sophisticated but beloved. Her mother was what might be termed a caution--married seven times, occasionally crazy (she once stood over Karr during childhood with a knife in her hand) and an alcoholic. As Karr notes, "Drinking to handle the angst of Mother's drinking--caused by her own angst--means our twin dipsomanias face off like a pair of mirrors, one generation offloading misery to the other through dwindling generations, back through history to when humans first fermented grapes."

After a stint with some surfers during her teen years, Karr went to college for a while, ended up marrying a fellow scholar, settled in Cambridge, had a child, and began to drink. She ended up in Alcoholic's Anonymous, and even though she dried out she was still depressed enough to make a half-hearted suicide attempt (she carried around a garden hose and some duct tape), spending some time in a mental hospital. Eventually she pulled herself together, became a published poet, and wrote her first, wildly successful memoir.

The heart of this book is Karr's religious evolution. During her A.A. rehabilitation she severely resisted the step of recognizing a higher power. She does so often and vociferously, and is told in several different ways how to pray without necessarily believing in God. When she does start praying, things start to turn her way, and eventually, after her son expresses a wish to go to church, she ends up converting to Catholicism. I found this part of the book interesting, because if I were in the same situation I'd have the same stubborn resistance. While I don't believe in God, I think that whatever works is good, and if Karr found happiness in the Catholic church, more power to her.

What makes this book great is the writing, which is free-wheeling but packs a wallop. She never talks down to the reader, and is always self-deprecating. After reading this book I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't want to be her pal. She is wise: "What hurts so bad about youth isn't the actual butt whippings the world delivers. It's the stupid hopes playacting like certainties." She is also uproariously funny: "One day I might splay across the sofa staring at infomercials with the sound off, wondering whether the Abdominizer is the answer, or the Pocket Fisherman, or that glittering altar of knives."

Though her parents are both gone, Karr is never overly sentimental, in fact if I had one criticism it's that the book didn't make me choke up--she's far too clear-eyed in her assessments. But this isn't that type of book. You don't need a box of tissues nearby, just an open mind.