The Liars' Club by Mary Karr

 

The weather chased us indoors for our July meeting where we discussed The Liars' Club, by Mary Karr. Coming up next for August is Looking for Alaska, by John Green. As a reminder, for the August 8th meeting, we have already reserved the large shelter at Paul Miller Park. If the weather turns again, we'll move the meeting back to the library meeting room and provide a Zoom link for anyone interested in tuning in from home~ we'll be sure to let you all know ASAP if there will be any changes. 

 

To the book!

 

Mary Karr grew up in a swampy East Texas refinery town in a volatile and defiantly loving family- 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. 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.

This book was largely received and described as a slog. Our members report that it was hard to get into, hard to to keep our attention, and harder still to want to pick up again after having put it down~ several attendees said they never finished it. This group couldn't relate to the story and really didn't care for any of the characters, with the exception of maybe Mary's father. They cited disjointed, distracted writing that veered off onto a myriad of tangents... and long chapters... and a bizarre ending.

The sparse praise that we could offer for this read was that Karr could craft a setting with good sensory bits folded into it so that one could "feel" the scene right along with her. One member added, "It made me want to clean my house, do the laundry, and take a shower." It was also added that while they didn't necessarily enjoy the book, they were glad they finished it.

In the end, when a handful of members mentioned that they hadn't finished the book and thought they'd decide on whether they'd like to or not after our talk, one attendee said, "There's just too many other good books out there to read." Collective laughter followed.

It was touched on a couple different times during the meeting that a few people questioned whether or not the book was completely accurate, or if it had been embellished here and there in an effort to be more sensationalized, and in turn, sell more copies. To the surprise of some, this practice in memoir is kind of the best un-kept secret of the genre. Apparently, it isn't unheard of in the slightest for memoir authors to exaggerate in their recounting... this was highly disappointing to some. Shouldn't it then be considered/marketed/shelved as fiction?

 

Weigh in below! 👇

 

Would you like to read more books like The Liars' Club? Fans of the book also enjoyed, Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs, Savage Beauty, by Nancy Milford, and The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls. All of these titles are available within the Viking system~ reserve your copy today!   

 

At the conclusion of every book club discussion we ask three questions and track the average answers:

Would we recommend this to a friend to read? 
"NO"  

 
Would we recommend this to another book club for discussion?
"NO" (we were unanimous!!)

Rate the book 1-5 stars, with 1 being the lowest rating:                                                      2 stars