"Karr is a national treasure--that rare genius who's also a brilliant
teacher. This joyful celebration of memoir packs transcendent insights
with trademark hilarity. Anyone yearning to write will be inspired, and
anyone passionate to live an examined life will fall in love with
language and literature all over again. " -- George Saunders
Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr's The
Liars' Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times
list. She followed with two other smash bestsellers: Cherry and Lit,
which were critical hits as well.
For thirty years Karr has also taught the form, winning teaching prizes
at Syracuse. (The writing program there produced such acclaimed authors
as Cheryl Strayed, Keith Gessen, and Koren Zailckas.) In The Art of
Memoir, she synthesizes her expertise as professor and therapy patient,
writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and "black belt
sinner," providing a unique window into the mechanics and art of the
form that is as irreverent, insightful, and entertaining as her own work
in the genre.
Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow
writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process.
(Plus all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and
friends get told-- and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in
depth.) As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir,
she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the
cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or
complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.
Joining such classics as Stephen King's On Writing and Anne Lamott's
Bird by Bird, The Art of Memoir is an elegant and accessible
exploration of one of today's most popular literary forms--a tour de
force from an accomplished master pulling back the curtain on her craft.
