Mary Karr Biography
Mary Karr (born January 16, 1955) is an American poet, essayist and memoirist from East Texas. She is widely noted for her 1995 bestselling memoir The Liars' Club. Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of English Literature at Syracuse University.
Early life and education
Karr was born in Groves, Texas, on January 16, 1955, and lived there until she relocated to Los Angeles in 1972. Her parents, Charlie Marie Moore and Pete Karr, were alcoholics, and she was a frequent partaker of drug abuse growing up. Karr attended Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota for two years and met poet Etheridge Knight, one of her mentors, during her time there. After a respite from school to participate in the anti-apartheid movement, Karr attended Goddard College and graduated with a terminal degree in fine arts.
Career
Memoirs
Karr's memoir The Liars' Club, published in 1995, was a New York Times bestseller for over a year, and was named one of the year's best books. It explores her deeply troubled childhood, most of which was spent in a gritty industrial section of Southeast Texas in the 1960s. Karr was encouraged to write her personal history by her friend Tobias Wolff, but has said she only took up the project when her marriage fell apart.
She followed the book with a second memoir, Cherry (2000), about her late adolescence and early womanhood.
A third memoir, Lit: A Memoir, which she says details "my journey from blackbelt sinner and lifelong agnostic to unlikely Catholic," came out in November 2009. The memoir describes Karr's time as an alcoholic and the salvation she found in her conversion to Catholicism. She describes herself as a cafeteria Catholic.
Poetry
Karr won a 1989 Whiting Award for her poetry. She was a Guggenheim Fellow in poetry in 2005 and has won Pushcart prizes for both her poetry and essays. Karr has published five volumes of poetry: Abacus (Wesleyan University Press, CT, 1987, in its New Poets series), The Devil's Tour (New Directions NY, 1993, an original TPB), Viper Rum (New Directions NY, 1998, an original TPB), Sinners Welcome (HarperCollins, NY, 2006), and Tropic of Squalor (HarperCollins, NY, 2018). Her poems have appeared in major literary magazines such as Poetry, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic Monthly.
Karr's Pushcart Award-winning essay, "Against Decoration", was originally published in the quarterly review Parn*us (1991) and later reprinted in Viper Rum. In "Against Decoration", Karr took a stand in favor of content over poetic style. She argued emotions need to be directly expressed and clarity should be a watch-word: characters are too obscure, the presented physical world is often "foggy" (that is imprecise), references are "showy" (both non-germane and overused), metaphors overshadow expected meaning, and techniques of language (polysyllables, archaic words, intricate syntax, "yards of adjectives") only "slow a reader's understanding".
Another essay, "Facing Altars: Poetry and Prayer", was originally published in Poetry (2005). Karr tells of moving from agnostic alcoholic to baptized Catholic of the decidedly "cafeteria" kind, yet one who prays twice daily with loud fervor from her "foxhole". In this essay, Karr argues that poetry and prayer arise from the same sources within us.
Other
In May 2015, Karr served as the commencement speaker at the 161st commencement for Syracuse University.
Personal life
Karr was married to poet Michael Milburn for thirteen years. Some time after their divorce, she had begun dating author David Foster Wallace. Karr spoke out about Wallace's abusive behaviour, which included obsessive stalking, throwing a coffee table at her, and har*ing her five-year-old son.
Although she has converted to Catholicism, Karr supports views that are at odds with the Catholic Church such as abortion (to which she is pro-choice), and has advocated for women's ordination to the priesthood. Karr has described herself as a feminist since the age of twelve.
Awards and honors
- 1989 Whiting Award
- 1995 PEN/Martha Albrand Award for The Liars' Club
- 2004 Guggenheim Fellowship
Works
Memoirs- The Liars' Club, Viking Adult; (1995) ISBN:0-670-85053-5
- Cherry: A Memoir, Penguin Books; Reissue edition (2001) ISBN:0-14-100207-7
- Lit: A Memoir, HarperCollins; (2009) ISBN:0-060-596996
- Abacus, Wesleyan (1987)
- The Devil's Tour, New Directions (1993) ISBN:0-8112-1231-9
- Viper Rum, Penguin (2001) ISBN:0-14-200018-3
- Sinners Welcome, HarperCollins (2006) ISBN:0-06-077654-4
- Tropic of Squalor, HarperCollins (2018) ISBN:0-06-2699822
- "Learner's Permit" (excerpt from Cherry). Nerve, w/o date.
- The Art of Memoir, Harper; (2015) ISBN:0-062-22306-2
References
External links
- Official website
- Paris Review Interview
- Mary Karr Author Page on harpercollins.com
- Profile at The Whiting Foundation
- Mary Karr, Remembering The Years She Spent 'Lit', November 3, 2009, NPR, Fresh Air
- Mary Karr biography at enotes.com
- NPR Interview with Karr for new poetry collection Sinners Welcome
- Salon Interview, May 1997
- Syracuse University - Faculty Biography page (former, archived)
- Syracuse University - Faculty Biography page (current)
- Rain Taxi Interview, Spring 2010
- Mary Karr Talks 'Tropic of Squalor,' Grinding Through Drafts, and Cellos, The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara
