Today, one of our favorite social websites, SHE WRITES, is encouraging everyone to buy at least one book written by a woman in 2009. Why? Well, to support women writers, but also in protest of Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Books of 2009–which featured NOT ONE book by a woman. So, with our hats off to SHE WRITES, here is our pick for a Great Book Written by a Woman in 2009–Mary Karr’s LIT:
We are thrilled to bring you an excerpt from this amazing memoir (reprinted with permission from her publisher, HarperCollins). In this passage, Ms. Karr explores how she bonded with her father through drinking. Something to think about: How has drinking (or not drinking) bonded you with people, or separated you from them?
From LIT:
For the first time in front of me, he drew a pint bottle from under his seat. He put the upended lid in the ashtray, and before he handed the bottle over, he drew out a corner of his shirttail to wipe the top with, saying, Want a swig?
As a kid sitting on the bar, I’d sipped beer through the salted tri- angle of his aluminum can, but Daddy had so long and adamantly denied drinking every day that Mother had long since stopped asking. And he’d sure as hell never handed me any hard liquor.
Daddy’s wink echoed our old conspiracy: me and him against Mother and Lecia, whose tightly guarded collusions were traded in whispers and giggles that he and I were meant to stay deaf to.
The bottle gleamed in the air between us. I took the whiskey, planning a courtesy sip. But the aroma stopped me just as my tongue touched the glass mouth. The warm silk flowered in my mouth and down my gullet, after which a little blue flame of pleasure roared back up my spine. A poof of sequins went sparkling through my middle.
As he went to screw the lid back on, my hand swung out of its own accord, and I said, Can I have another taste?
That taste started me seeking out more hard liquor once I was back at school, though drugs were still easier to come by even than beer. I did okay at old Lackluster College—in no way a star, but neither the abject flop I’d figured on. Daddy carried my grade reports in his ancient wallet.
But it’s a truism, I think, that drunks like to run off. Every reality, no matter how pressing—save maybe death row—has an escape route or rabbit hole. Some drinkers go inward into a sullen spiral, and my daddy was one of these; others favor the geographic cure. My mother taught me to seek external agents of transformation—pick a new town or man or job.
That’s why I left college at the end of my sophomore year: I just got this urge to run off, maybe because friends in a band were heading for Austin. Or all the rich kids were going abroad. Or maybe the course work was getting too hard, and I couldn’t face losing my scholarships and reentering the hairnet. I floundered and skipped classes that winter till, shortly before finals that spring, I just stopped showing up. LIT. Copyright © 2009 by Mary Karr.
Mary Karr is an award-winning poet and best-selling memoirist. Her memoir Lit, which is excerpted above, is the long-awaited sequel to her critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling memoirs The Liars’ Club and Cherry. To find out more about Mary Karr, or to order a copy of LIT, go to www.harpercollins.com
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for sharing this excerpt. I’m really excited to check out the book! Also, I’m glad you brought up the point about buying women authors this year. It’s SHOCKING there were no women on the 2009 list.
Thank you for this. The excerpt is amazing. I’m going to add this to my book list or maybe buy it today.
I’m so glad you posted this and are spreading the word about the SheWrites action on behalf of women writers everywhere. I just bought the book “When Everything Changed,” by Gail Collins, which looks at the huge impact of the women’s movement on society and culture since the 1960s. A lot HAS changed–and that’s all good–but as the Publisher’s Weekly “boys’ club” list of the top ten books indicates–the world hasn’t changed enough! I can’t even name how many fantastic books I have read by women in the past year: old books and new books, including a few novels and memoirs that focus on women’s drinking. Can’t wait to read Mary Karr’s new memoir…
I was so delighted to see the excerpt was from Mary Karr. Shje’s extraordinary. I remember reading Liar’s Club on a vacation and it took my breath away because it wa so raw. I’ll read the new one for sure!