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The Liars' Club: A Memoir Paperback – Illustrated, May 31, 2005

by Mary Karr (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 3,839 ratings
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#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.
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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 3
    The Liars' Club
  2. Print length
    352 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  5. Publication date
    May 31, 2005
  6. Dimensions
    5.06 x 0.64 x 7.76 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0143035746
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0143035749
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

About the Author

Mary Karr kick-started a memoir revolution with The Liars' Club, which was a New York Times bestseller for over a year, a best book of the year for The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, People and Time, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the winner of prizes from PEN and the Texas Institute of Letters. Karr has won the Whiting Award, Radcliffe's Bunting Fellowship, and Pushcart Prizes for both verse and essays, and she has been a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. Her other bestselling books include The Art of Memoir, the memoirs Lit and Cherry, and the poetry collection Sinners Welcome, Viper Rum, The Devil's Tour, and Abacus. The Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University, Karr lives in New York City.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books; Reprint edition (May 31, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0143035746
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0143035749
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.06 x 0.64 x 7.76 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 3,839 ratings

About the author

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Mary Karr

Mary Karr

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Mary Karr's first memoir, The Liar's Club, kick-started a memoir revolution and won nonfiction prizes from PEN and the Texas Institute of Letters. Also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, it rode high on the New York Times bestseller list for over a year, becoming an annual "best book" there and for The New Yorker, People, and Time. Recently Entertainment Weekly rated it number four in the top one hundred books of the past twenty-five years. Her second memoir, Cherry, which was excerpted in The New Yorker, also hit bestseller and "notable book" lists at the New York Times and dozens of other papers nationwide. Her most recent book in this autobiographical series, Lit: A Memoir, is the story of her alcoholism, recovery, and conversion to Catholicism. A Guggenheim Fellow in poetry, Karr has won Pushcart Prizes for both verse and essays. Other grants include the Whiting Award and Radcliffe's Bunting Fellowship. She is the Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University.

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Top reviews from the United States

Ken Gullette
5.0 out of 5 stars Best Memoir I Have Ever Read
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2021
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I didn't just read this book. I recognized how good it is immediately. I was completely taken by surprise by the poetic and funny writing, outlining Mary's childhood in a dysfunctional family; so captivated that I found myself underlining passages and the wonderful way she describes everything, such as when her father came home. She didn't have to write that he was drunk. Instead, she writes, "Every now and then he'd come home lurching around like a train conductor." The image made me stop, laugh, and marvel, and it happened throughout the book. It is a true pleasure, such as when she said something to a neighbor after he got after her for shooting his son with a b-b gun. She writes, "And I came back with a reply that the aging mothers in that town still click their tongues about." This is the best memoir I have ever read, and I have ordered her sequels. I recommended this to my friends and the ones who bought it are raving about it.
4 people found this helpful
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Bette Hayward
4.0 out of 5 stars Classic Memoir that Other Memoirs Reference
Reviewed in the United States on June 12, 2014
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If you're into reading personal memoirs (we used to call them auto-biography, but that designation seems to be passé today), you already know that The Liars' Club is often mentioned in the reviews (by way of comparison). It is gritty, down-to-earth and I could tell the author put her heart and soul into its telling. Some of the telling seemed redundant at points and the detail about Southeast Texas & Louisiana life was overlong. However, I can't deny that the story itself was compelling (if not maddening in many places); also the same character that infuriated me throughout the telling, in the end, made me cry. It was sometimes also difficult to comprehend that so many awful incidents could happen to one child (does the title have an ironic relation to the telling of the story itself?); however, if there were no embellishments, then this truly is a story of grit, survival and sharing--so that anyone who had similar growing-up experiences could feel the freedom of not going through hell alone.
14 people found this helpful
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D. Gordon-Brown
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!
Reviewed in the United States on February 12, 2024
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A beautiful, wonderfully told memoir of a painful childhood written wit tenderness and humor. Couldn’t put it down. Have now read it twice.
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Juliet Blake
3.0 out of 5 stars Does the title give a valuable clue?
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2001
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The majority of this memoir recounts a period in the author's childhood where she was around 5 years old, or thereabouts. As I was reading this book, I kept going around and around about how much of this is downright fabricated and in fact the work of a very skillful writer? Yet all the loose ends tie up at the end. Hmm, don't know what to think.
It's not a pretty story and not for the faint of heart. I can be a pretty tough old bird, and some of her descriptions were downright shocking. This book was recommended to me by an author, and I was told it had one funny one-liner after the next, flat out great writing--read it immediately! I didn't want to tell this person, that I didn't laugh but once (the humor is dark) and I thought, Geez, this writer should be put in the corner with Salinger and Henry Miller (w/o all the four-letter obscenities) as far as salty prose goes. If that is your cup of tea, then give this book a try. After all is said and done, it is a page-turner, it keeps your interest, and even has a sort of moving twist at the end. It's a well-written book; the style will not be for everyone.
71 people found this helpful
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Pam
5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Read
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2024
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I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Liars’ Club and will be moving to her next memoir of her series right away. I especially loved Karr’s detailed description of her own character as a child. She was authentic and brutally honest throughout. Her prose was at times a bit over the top, almost like too much spice in a recipe, but that’s just individual taste.
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Nina Cornelsen
4.0 out of 5 stars smell like oil. Per Mary’s telling
Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2016
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If your family is normal, or even quasi-normal, then "The Liar’s Club" will showcase a whole new cultural experience for you. Mary Karr’s memoir describes her 1960s childhood with her sister Lecia in hilarious, horrific detail. For our reading entertainment, the profoundly dysfunctional Karr family takes the proverbial stage in "Leechfield," Texas (a pseudonym for the Port Arthur area). Leechfield is a lower-middle class town where the land and the air, and a lot of the people, smell like oil.

Per Mary’s telling, her mother (whom she simply calls Mother) is a tortured artist, full of inner grandeur, and stifled by the bounds of poverty. She’s philosophical, passionate, and brilliant in her own ways, but she’s immobilized by mental illness and alcoholism. Her artistic flamboyance is so out of place in Leechfield, no one knows what to make of her, and the community writes her off as lunatic. But their assessment doesn’t seem unfair. Mother’s wildly destructive behaviors are the primary thrill factor of the book. Only the glowering, disapproving grandmother can subdue her, to the astonishment and disappointment of young Mary.

Mary’s father (Daddy) is the saner parent. He’s an alcoholic too, but since he’s unplagued by mental illness, he isn't ostracized. He holds a job in the oil refinery, feeds his family, and dotes on his little girls. Daddy is famous in Leechfield for his masterful telling of tall tales among friends (inspiring the title "The Liars’ Club").

Although Mother and Daddy do love Mary and Lecia, Mother’s illness overshadows every aspect of their lives with insanity. Mary and Lecia have few boundaries. While Lecia assumes the responsibility that her mother shirks, Mary grows sassy and wild.

When Mother comes into some money, they all move from oil-permeated Leechfield to an idyllic ranch in Colorado, where the girls roam the wild countryside on horseback in mountain-fresh air under wide open skies. But as it has been said, no matter where you go, there you are. Addiction and illness follow them. Mother and Daddy divorce soon thereafter, and the children are abandoned to themselves and tossed around with fantastical carelessness.

To conclude the memoir, Mary skips to her young adulthood. Mother’s new money has been squandered, Mother and Daddy have reconciled, they’ve returned to Leechfield, Daddy is bedridden, and a great family secret is disclosed. Suddenly, the insanity makes sense. But don’t read ahead. You need the blindness to appreciate Mary’s bewildering, focusless upbringing.

Throughout the book, Mary hints that she and Lecia have grown into contributing, productive humans, but as she describes her childhood, you may wonder how that outcome is possible. Maybe this is what saves the girls: Despite all the chaos, a thread of love is evident. The girls are not rejected by either parent, nor by each other. They learn attachment.

Karr’s narrative is a mashup of childish perspective and grown-up introspection. Her lexicon is deliberate and selective. She crafts each sentence like a poet (which she also is). In her writing, you’ll see glimpses of the good genes she’s inherited. She’s an artist, like her mother, and a taleweaver, like her father. Enjoy "The Liar’s Club" like wine: Some of it is unsavory. Some of it is exquisite. All of it will alter your outlook.

Check out my other reviews at [...]
129 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Um livro clássico e memorável.
Reviewed in Brazil on January 7, 2020
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Leitura altamente intrigante. Escrita direta, cativante. Memorável.
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Engancha
Reviewed in Spain on December 7, 2020
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Te mantiene el interés en su lectura
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Book Lover
5.0 out of 5 stars The Liar's Club meetings were among Karr's best memories, where the smoking
Reviewed in Canada on August 15, 2017
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While the subject matter is dark and it is hard to believe it is a memoir, the prose is exquisite. As Karr says herself "...a dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it." Every family has its secrets and life in the 1960s in a small Texas oil town was where you traditionally kept family business within the family. The Liar's Club meetings were among Karr's best memories, where the smoking, drinking, story telling men admired her father most of all and did not think it strange that he often brought his five year old daughter to the get togethers. I highly recommend this memoir.
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Kiervol
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2017
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I almost didn't read this because of the intro by Lena Dunham (I'm not sure if this feature will allow me to edit the spelling of her name, so sorry it is incorrect). I've actually read her book as well, but I'm not in the mood for her voice right now, and it put me off. I was wrong. Her intro was lovely and the book is life changing. Karr's voice is unique and loveable, self deprecating and extremely interesting. Her story is both shocking and totally relatable. Some parts of the story were so relatable that it could ruin my day, or cause me to lose patience with my kids, or fill me with sadness, but it is so so good. Like I often do, I'll probably buy a hard copy of the book now so I can look at it on the shelf, read small parts, and remember that good writing comes in surprising places.
4 people found this helpful
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BAZZA
5.0 out of 5 stars Tough kid turns into tenacious writer
Reviewed in Germany on May 13, 2013
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I caught up with Mary Karr via Rodney Crowell and the excellently produced country CD "KIN" which came out early in the year. Rodney wrote the melodies and sang and produced various country stars while Mary wrote the lyrics to the songs.Titles like "Momma's On A Roll" and "If The Law Don't Want You Neither Do I" are representative of the themes of the album which all stem from Mary's harsh upbringing in the East Texas post rock 'n roll years. Not far from where Rodney was experiencing his "Chinaberry Sidewalks" and his own turbulent teens. She makes you laugh at the antics of her parents in their rawhide community and shows a remarkable memory for the twists and turns that a growing kid goes through just trying to keep her spirit from sinking down with every sunset over the dusky prairie. Fresh as a blueberry pie cooling on the window ledge.
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