My father comes into focus for me on a Liars' Club afternoon. He sits at a
wobbly card table weighed down by a bottle. Even now the scene seems so
real to me that I can't but write it in the present tense. Mary Karr grew
up in a swampy East Texas refinery town in a volatile and defiantly loving
family. In this funny, devastating, haunting memoir and with a raw and
often painful honesty, she looks back at life with a painter mother, seven
times married, whose outlaw spirit could tip over into psychosis, and a
hard-drinking, fist-swinging father who liked nothing better than to spin
tales with his cronies at the Liars' Club. When it was published in 1995,
The Liars' Club raised the art of memoir to a new level and brought about a
dramatic revival of the form. It is a classic that paints a harsh world
redeemed by Karr's warmth, intelligent humour and finely spun prose; The
Liars' Club is both heart-stopping and heart-felt.