Cherry

by Mary Karr

Book Overview

From Mary Karr comes this gorgeously written, often hilarious story of her tumultuous teens and sexual coming-of-age. Picking up where the bestselling The Liars' Club left off, Karr dashes down the trail of her teen years with customary sass, only to run up against the paralyzing self-doubt of a girl in bloom. Fleeing the thrills and terrors of adolescence, she clashes against authority in all its forms and hooks up with an unforgettable band...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0141002077
• ISBN13: 9780141002071
• Release Date: September 2001
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.47 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

this "autobiography" is fiction

Mary Karr's "autobiography" is pure fabrication. for instance; she writes that her Dad worked the night shift, then made a 7 1/2 hour round trip from her "hometown" (Leechfield, TX. = fake name) she is actually from Groves,TX) to Fort Smith, AR. to buy her plums, and was back in time for breakfast that morning ! This is just one of the many falsehoods that her book is full of, and anyone vaguely familiar with her hometown knows it. write a fiction novel if you like, but don't call it your autobiography.

Tour de force

Picks up where The Liar's Club left off. Exquisite writing about Mary Karr's volatile, on-the-edge adolescence in a nowhere little town in Texas. Anyone who thinks kids in a small town can't get up to 'mischief' would do well to read Cherry. Karr is talented, brilliant, and challenged by her situation: the child of unreliable, often absent parents who blunder through life as if parenting were a game you can choose to play - or not.As a writer myself, I found Karr's use of the second person 'you' when referring to herself to be a stunningly successful ploy, a way of showing how adolescents distant themselves from their own lives even in speech and writing. Maturing out of childhood and directly into sexuality, Karr finds her salvation in books and language, but it obviously wasn't easy.Wonderful writing, scary story, great book.

iconoclastic, defiant and gritty teen discerns true self

Both the cover and title of Mary Karr's second memoir, "Cherry," are deceptive. Although her scathingly witty and powerfully realized descriptions of coming-of-age in the environmentally and spiritually polluted town of Leechfield, Texas, during the late 1960s and early 70s treat her sexual awakening, her memoir is much more a sarcastic, self-deprecating, but liberating analysis of how Mary came to understand her essence. Her knowledge of what she would come to refer to as her "Same Self" is hard earned, the author having travelled through the seas of family dysfunction, alienation and rejection of her social mileu, and a bizarre and frightening absorbtion into the drug-culture and the nascent counterculture of her adolescence. Ms. Karr is an exquisite writer; the compelling narrative of her life augments the marvelous capturing of Texan patois and the absolutely captivating characterizations she renders of the men, women and children who help provide defintion to her life.Now a professor of English at Syracuse University, Mary Karr was a hellion as a child and a rebel as a teenager. Resentful of the restrictions imposed upon her by a town dedicated to spewing toxic waste into the atmosphere and reared by an alcoholic father and a desperately brilliant but fiercely independent mother, Mary determines not to follow the footsteps of her voluptuous (and right wing) older sister. At eleven, envious of her boyfriends' freedom and captivated by her initial sexual stirrings towards one of them, Mary determines to ride her bike bare-chested. This foray into inarticulated feminist rebellion backfires, of course; the humiliated Mary retreats into her home, bewildered by her mother's bland acquiesence and determined even more to find her place in the world. Her eventual understanding of her place as a woman -- of its power, its fragility and its vulnerability -- evolves in a powerful and frightening description of an aborted sexual assualt on her mother.That place would not be in school. Some of the memoir's best writing captures the tumultuous years Mary survived high school. A self-described screw-up, Mary constantly challenged authorities, ridiculing their perceived stupidity and rigidity, wantonly defying traditional convention and eagerly embracing a personality which glorified lassitude, disenchantment and disengagement. Her eventual involvement (perhaps devolution into) with the world of drugs causes her to remember many events in a fragmented, near kaleidescopic manner. Although a bit repetitious at times, her colorful, caustic and critical analaysis of the impact of drugs on her consciousness remind the reader of how much this young woman actually forced upon herself in her quest for self understanding.The brutal truth is that Mary Karr was lucky to escape Leechfield. "The slope of boredom there is steep enough to cast the shadow of an astonishingly high suicide rate." Despite the "crushing tedium" of life, this profoundly brillian

Angst of adolescence with a hard-edged sense of humor

Mary Karr is a fine writer. When I read her memoir, "The Liar'sClub" about her rough and tumble childhood in a working classTexas town, I loved every word. That's why I was so anxious to readthis sequel, which deals with her adolescence. There are definitelysome differences between the two books, but I wasn'tdisappointed.The voice of the young Mary Karr comes through loudand clear. It's honest and foul-mouthed and disrespectful. It's asharp-tongued blade that dares to illuminate the angst of adolescencewith a hard-edged sense of humor. And yet it brings the bittersweetsadness of disappointments and awakenings to the page. The readercannot help but love her.This book tells her story from age 11through 17. It's about her friendships and boyfriends and coming ofage. As it takes place in the 1970s, there are a lot of drugs. Maryis sent to the principal's office for not wearing a bra. Mary hangsout with long-haired surfers and does drugs. Mary gets arrested.Mary's sister takes a different path than Mary.In this book, Mary'sparents take a back seat to the peer group. The story of theirtumultuous marriage, psychological breakdowns and heavy drinking hasbeen explored in "The Liar's Club". By this book theireccentricities and foibles are already accepted as givens. Again,their love shines through.I'm glad that Ms. Karr decided tocontinue her story. It might have been a little more episodic thanthe first book and the events not as traumatic. But the strength ofher writing is not in the events, but in her view of them. And thatis why I enjoyed this book so much.The book ends when Mary is 17.Hopefully, they'll be yet another book that will follow her throughthe years.

Beautifully Written Memoirs of an Excrutiating Adolescence

Unbelievable pain scalds almost every sentence of this powerful autobiography of growing up an intelligent outsider in a small Texas town (Leechfield -- "mind-crushing atmosphere of sameness"). You will find yourself stunned by the challenging circumstances of Professor Karr's teenage years, and rooting for her to find her grounding. The superb writing would be enough to attract any reader, even though it features a frankness and roughness of tone that I normally condemn. In this case, the language is warranted in portraying the emotional reality of Professor Karr's life. It gives you access to her mostly uncensored thinking in a way that captures the moment for all time. For example, in describing her forthcoming trip to California she says, "[Y]ou are still immortal, and that coast . . . is beckoning you with invisible fingers of hashish smoke."Ms. Karr managed to be an outsider in more ways that most can imagine. She was an intelligent female in a town that did not favor intelligence. Her family was about as unconventional as you can imagine ("Mother also had a secret history of hasty marriages and equally hasty dissolutions." -- 7 marriages in all, including two to Ms. Karr's daddy; her daddy drank and kept a mistress who was later shot and killed by her husband.). She was an unattractive tomboy who had a strong sexual drive from a young age. She frequently misbehaved in ways that caused people to become very uncomfortable (such as abusing people verbally in explicitly profane ways, riding topless on her bicycle when she was 11, and going noticeably braless in high school).As a result, she had a hard time making and keeping friends. "Other girls from families as weird as mine managed to overcome their origins . . . . Without the company of other girls, the summer became the first of many vacant summers."Her mother and daddy had a habit of just disappearing at night to show up days later with various lame excuses. She and her sister would steal her daddy's truck at 13 and drive around looking for one or both of their parents.As a result, "I was growing into a worrier, a world-class insomniac, what one friend would later describe as a grief-seeking missile." Not surprisingly, she was soon experimenting with almost every sort of drug and way of partying that you can imagine . . . looking to dull or avoid the pain. These experiences and their consequences are described in compelling detail in the book.Not too many people cut her any slack, and she was always surprised when someone tried to help her. Between the vividness of her experiences and the beauty of the writing, this book is likely to become a classic among young people, especially young women, and those who want to understand them better. After reading the book, I gave my teenage daughter a big hug and thanked our lucky stars that she is having an easier time than Professor Karr did. After you finish this book, consider how you can create more stability and kindness for som

BRILLIANT!

The Liar's Club was one of the most poignant, funny, shocking, stunningly written memoirs ever. Cherry continues where Liar's Club left off, and every single sentence is an incredible work of poetic mastery. Mary's dangerously eccentric family (dysfunctional doesn't even BEGIN to describe this odd assortment of people), and her poisonous, dead-end hometown of Leechfield return - but Mary's coming-of-age is the focus in Cherry. The fact that this bizarre family and ugly little town helped to create a author who works magic with the written word is amazing! If you've read The Liar's Club, you MUST read Cherry. If you missed The Liar's Club, start with it and I promise you'll want to read this new one also.