So I’m not recounting things because they happened to me; I’m trying to make a work of art the way a novelist would or a poet would. I’m trying to assemble a machine that the reader puts the penny of his or her attention into and pulls the handle and gets out a feeling.
I'm glad that I listened to the audiobook of Lit because it was read by Mary Karr herself and her slight Texas twang gave a sardonic edge to the more self-effacing bits; and as anyone would think, someone who survives this harrowing childhood and overcomes this alcoholism and resolves an adult relationship with this mother would likely need some complicated coping mechanisms, including wit and irony. Hers is a eventful and rich story (especially impressive since this is her third memoir) and listening to her tell the tale felt intimate and maybe (hopefully) not too voyeurish.
On the other hand, if, as that quote I found indicates, her intent was to make me feel, I don't know if this book is 100% successful-- it left me a little empty, despite the interesting story told by a successful poet and professor of English. I respect that she fought for sobriety, and I understand that that is hard work that she had to do by herself for herself, but I don't understand how she became so especially favoured by the God she refused to believe in: every time she was broke or unhappy or unfulfilled, someone would advise Mary to get on her knees and pray, and repeatedly, a royalty cheque would come in the mail, or a fellowship would be offered out of the blue, or an acquaintance would randomly offer what she was looking for. I don't resent her experiences with what she refers to as grace, but the world is full of people more desperate who can't seem to pray their way out of their problems.
After finishing Lit, I was surprised by some of the things I discovered about Mary Karr-- she's considered to be a very successful and respected poet, lecturer and teacher, and yet in the book she seems to be always just on the edge of respectability and solvency, that one royalty cheque away from losing the home she's trying to provide for her son as a single mother. Also, it seems to be a poorly kept secret that the "David" she dates in the book is David Foster Wallace, and although I understand why a person wouldn't necessarily want to be name-dropping the famous person she dated, I would have had a slightly different understanding of the narrative had I known that at the time. In Lit, she describes a marriage in which her teetotalling husband is oblivious to her alcoholism, and yet it's easy enough to find some of his essays in which he writes about his own lifelong alcoholism. Was this change made to protect Mary's ex-husband's privacy? Shouldn't it make me wonder what other parts are sanitized or otherwise "improved" upon?
Here's an excerpt from an interview about Lit and the nature of memoir:
SFP: You write in the prologue to Lit, a letter to your son, that you’re telling your own story in the hopes that one day he’ll be able to tell his own. Do think that’s one of the projects of memoir, for the narrator to claim his or her story?
MK: No, I think it’s one of the projects of becoming a grown-up. And, in fact, I think you have to be a grown-up before you can write a memoir—otherwise, put a cork in it, and don’t waste my time. You have to be a grown-up to be able to ruthlessly examine what happened. I wrote this book three times—and that’s multiple drafts each time. I wrote it the first time to remember what happened. I wrote it the second time to get some psychological perspective. Each one of those times took years. And then the third time, I was doing some work on the religious stuff and what I call lapidary work, just trying to make the sentences good. You look at the sentences in it, and if it says, “I went to the store,” you think, That’s a pretty tedious sentence. How can that be better? “My mother drove me to college.” No, My mother’s car moved like a Monopoly icon through fields of Iowa corn. That’s just a better sentence. I got that from reading Isaac Babel. He has some amazing sentences. I have a voice that I know how to do, that has certain qualities of syntax and diction that I’ve cultivated over years. This book is not in the same voice as The Liars Club and Cherry, but it’s akin to it, you can tell it’s the same person. If it seemed like a totally different person it would be weird.
So, was this memoir overwritten? Does three versions, over many years, lead to a more artful experience? Could it have stifled feeling with form? I'm not certain: as much as I recognise how well written Lit is, I'm not sharing in the presence of grace.
