Mary Karr

Mary Karr has always had a wobbly relationship with Leechfield, Texas, the town that formed her, nurtured her and, eventually, slingshot her out across the vast desert toward California. Karr first returned to Leechfield in her critically acclaimed memoir, "The Liars' Club"; she does so again in "Cherry," which tells the story of her teenage years and her quest for intimacy in experience, in sex, drugs and the proverbial rock 'n' roll. "If there was any place worthy of escape. .

Fiction writers don't often get credit for their influence on the world -- it is often invisible and unheralded. But among those on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, released Thursday, were two surprising names: short story maven George Saunders and novelist Hilary Mantel.  They keep company with "Leaders," (President Obama, Wayne LaPierre, Kim Jong Un), "Titans" (Jay-Z, LeBron James, Elon Musk) and "Icons" (Malala Yousafzai, Lena Dunham, Gabrielle Giffords)

Lit A Memoir Mary Karr Harper: 390 pp., $25.99 "Any way I tell this story is a lie," reads the first line of "Lit" by poet and memoirist Mary Karr. It's an ironic beginning for a writer who rose to fame on "The Liars' Club," a book recounting her turbulent childhood -- the title taken from the group of guys her roughneck father hung out with, shooting pool and telling tall tales in their East Texas town. Karr doesn't mean her "lie" in that tall-tale sense, nor in the James Frey way of intended deception.

Lit A Memoir Mary Karr Harper: 390 pp., $25.99 "Any way I tell this story is a lie," reads the first line of "Lit" by poet and memoirist Mary Karr. It's an ironic beginning for a writer who rose to fame on "The Liars' Club," a book recounting her turbulent childhood -- the title taken from the group of guys her roughneck father hung out with, shooting pool and telling tall tales in their East Texas town. Karr doesn't mean her "lie" in that tall-tale sense, nor in the James Frey way of intended deception.

Memoirs inhabit the middle ground between truth and fiction. They can't stick to the facts, and only the facts, because we don't remember past events as clearly as we remember how we felt about them, which is a different kind of truth. And sometimes, as in Mary Karr's memoir about her East Texas childhood, the events themselves are so bizarre, no novelist could get away with them.

It's question time after a talk by memoirist Mary Karr at the Huntington Library, and a woman in the audience wants to tell a story. It happened, the woman says, when her book club discussed sections of Karr's book, "The Liars' Club," in which she describes being raped at 7 by a neighborhood boy and later being forced to have oral sex with a baby sitter. Every single woman in the group confessed to having suffered physical or sexual abuse as children. "Look at this face," one member said.

Warren Olney, radio talk show host: "The Liar's Club" by Mary Karr (Viking). "It's appalling and hysterically funny at the same time, a stark reporting of the ghastly facts of a childhood almost inexpressibly shocking, but which, in the end, in Karr's telling, is immensely life-affirming and forgiving." * Doug Dutton, bookseller: "Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance" by Lisa Jardine (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). "There's nothing better than a well-written history.

Fiction writers don't often get credit for their influence on the world -- it is often invisible and unheralded. But among those on Time magazine's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, released Thursday, were two surprising names: short story maven George Saunders and novelist Hilary Mantel.  They keep company with "Leaders," (President Obama, Wayne LaPierre, Kim Jong Un), "Titans" (Jay-Z, LeBron James, Elon Musk) and "Icons" (Malala Yousafzai, Lena Dunham, Gabrielle Giffords)

FOR the last century, serious poetry has been largely secular. Literary types see religion as something literature has gotten over. Poets who fail to vanquish any Christian spirituality beyond what is quaint are usually condemned to "inspirational poetry," except poor old T.S. Eliot. But it's his angst that people take seriously, not his prayer. Now, however, two major American poets have declared themselves on the side of God.

FOR the last century, serious poetry has been largely secular. Literary types see religion as something literature has gotten over. Poets who fail to vanquish any Christian spirituality beyond what is quaint are usually condemned to "inspirational poetry," except poor old T.S. Eliot. But it's his angst that people take seriously, not his prayer. Now, however, two major American poets have declared themselves on the side of God.

Mary Karr has always had a wobbly relationship with Leechfield, Texas, the town that formed her, nurtured her and, eventually, slingshot her out across the vast desert toward California. Karr first returned to Leechfield in her critically acclaimed memoir, "The Liars' Club"; she does so again in "Cherry," which tells the story of her teenage years and her quest for intimacy in experience, in sex, drugs and the proverbial rock 'n' roll. "If there was any place worthy of escape. .

Warren Olney, radio talk show host: "The Liar's Club" by Mary Karr (Viking). "It's appalling and hysterically funny at the same time, a stark reporting of the ghastly facts of a childhood almost inexpressibly shocking, but which, in the end, in Karr's telling, is immensely life-affirming and forgiving." * Doug Dutton, bookseller: "Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance" by Lisa Jardine (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday). "There's nothing better than a well-written history.

It's question time after a talk by memoirist Mary Karr at the Huntington Library, and a woman in the audience wants to tell a story. It happened, the woman says, when her book club discussed sections of Karr's book, "The Liars' Club," in which she describes being raped at 7 by a neighborhood boy and later being forced to have oral sex with a baby sitter. Every single woman in the group confessed to having suffered physical or sexual abuse as children. "Look at this face," one member said.

Memoirs inhabit the middle ground between truth and fiction. They can't stick to the facts, and only the facts, because we don't remember past events as clearly as we remember how we felt about them, which is a different kind of truth. And sometimes, as in Mary Karr's memoir about her East Texas childhood, the events themselves are so bizarre, no novelist could get away with them.

Joan Didion had it right. In her 1976 essay “Why I Write,” originally published in the New York Times Book Review, she lays out the template in no uncertain terms: “In many ways writing is the act of saying I , of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind . It's an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions -...