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Thinking about this more I realized my mistake was that I was constantly comparing Cherry to Karr's previous memoir The Liars' Club which impacted me greatly. I see Cherry now as more of a stance on being set as an example for women finding adolescence relatable to Karr's experience, finding solace in the less personal intimacy of Karr's specific family dynamic to the more anecdotal retelling of her teen years, especially with use of second person, making it more accessible to the reader. Cherry contains the same humor and genuine depiction of Texas through Karr's mesmerizing language and knack for emitting nostalgia.
3.5 instead of 3. I've heard & read various stories about Mary Karr & was prepared to not like her writing. However, I was captivated by Cherry & Karr's portrayal of the familiar yet stagnant life in a small Southern town. In the last section of the book, Karr mentions how she is always surprised when people think her personal stories indicate a hard childhood or how she developed personal strength. She thinks that everyone from her hometown could tell stories about how hard their life is & this matter-of-factness informs much of her writing voice. I was surprised that while this memoir is about loss of innocence in many different ways, Karr skates over a childhood incident that seems to suggest her first sexual contact was at a very young age & possibly coerced. Maybe she had already told this story in one of her other memoirs; I don't know since Cherry is the first work I've read by Karr. The timeline seems to spiral out of control a bit but is to be expected since the story she tells is of a disorienting adolescence. Overall, an interesting read & I'll be looking forward to her other books.
This seemed to find narrative footing more quickly than Lit did. (I haven't read Liars Club.) I listened to her read her own memoir, which I always think is a bit more powerful than the written word (when it comes to memoirs). This book seemed true, heart wrenching, and just poignant enough without ever truly falling into self-pity. I plan to listen to Liars Club next.
I liked this book. all the more so because Mary Karr is now a college professor.
Once I got started on Mary Karr's account of her life in The Liars' Club, I didn't want to stop. Cherry is the sequel memoir, telling the story of Ms. Karr's adolescence. The author's voice is as strong as ever, and the cast of characters as interesting. I especially enjoyed the nuanced descriptions Karr gives of her relationships with friends. As a reader, I am so glad this lonely girl had friends, but I also appreciated the truth the author tells in the very real, if sometimes subtle, streaks of codependency that color even the best of high school friendships. Once again, Ms. Karr refuses to romanticize the characters in her life story. If she gets close at any point it is with the motley crew of friends she travels with during her late teen years. This was my least favorite part of any of her memoir writings - it felt a bit rushed, and, perhaps, the least internalized. I suspect the sort of "unreal" quality of the writing could be the result of the drugs.
In all, I'd recommend every single thing Mary Karr writes. Her story - and the broken-but-being-healed voice in which she tells it - is a gift to all of us trying to make sense of our own lives.
In all, I'd recommend every single thing Mary Karr writes. Her story - and the broken-but-being-healed voice in which she tells it - is a gift to all of us trying to make sense of our own lives.
Kids in distressed families are great repositories of silence and carry in their bodies whole arctic wastelands of words not to be uttered, stories not to be told.
Unsurprisingly, Mary Karr did it again, with a coming-of-age story that doesn't make your eyes roll. At once beautiful and playfully irreverent, Karr details the hormonal soup of adolescence, from her complicated sexual awakening to her drug-addled journey away from home in East Texas.
I read Mary Karr’s memoirs out of order. I started with Lit, then I read The Liar’s Club, and now finally, I have read Cherry. Lit is one of my all-time favorite memoirs. I think that if anyone wants to understand the full-potential of memoir as a genre, they should read Lit. I liked The Liar’s Club better than Cherry, but for only one reason: Cherry is written in second person.
To make it even more difficult, it is only partially written in second person. When I start a book, it always takes me a little bit of time to get used to the style, tense, and point of view. In this book, I couldn’t get used to everything one swoop because it switches to second person halfway through the book. So, I had to get used to Karr’s style and then get used to the POV.
However, Cherry is saved by Karr’s style and focus. Her writing is beautiful, gritty, realistic, and romantic. Her prose is like good poetry. Her focus is where she puts her attention. Cherry itself is unique because it delves deeply into the psychology and circumstance of being poor, white, and southern. Previously, I’ve only ever read about that world from an outsider’s perspective. Mary Karr, in her characteristic clear-eyed frankness pulls me right into her teenaged factory town crowd.
To make it even more difficult, it is only partially written in second person. When I start a book, it always takes me a little bit of time to get used to the style, tense, and point of view. In this book, I couldn’t get used to everything one swoop because it switches to second person halfway through the book. So, I had to get used to Karr’s style and then get used to the POV.
However, Cherry is saved by Karr’s style and focus. Her writing is beautiful, gritty, realistic, and romantic. Her prose is like good poetry. Her focus is where she puts her attention. Cherry itself is unique because it delves deeply into the psychology and circumstance of being poor, white, and southern. Previously, I’ve only ever read about that world from an outsider’s perspective. Mary Karr, in her characteristic clear-eyed frankness pulls me right into her teenaged factory town crowd.