It’s hard to believe that it took me so long to discover the work of Mary Karr. Karr is professor of writing at Syracuse University and her programmes are desperately over-subscribed. Yes, she is that good.
I first discovered her memoir, The Liar’s Club, when it was recommended to me by a therapist, impressed by the way Mary managed to write to candidly and yet without indulgence about her dysfunctional childhood.
As I read, sure, I was delighted to see how she tackled the subject matter, but more than anything I was blown away by her style. Memoir hangs 100% on voice, and here was a writer who broke the rules, finished sentences with prepositions and had a tone that was completely her own.
After The Liar’s Club I headed straight for Karr non-fiction book, The Art of Memoir, and it was here that I read the words:
“Whatever people like about you in the world will manifest itself onto the page What drives them crazy will keep you humble. You’ll need both sides of yourself – the beautiful and the beastly – to hold a reader’s attention.”
In other words, you have to be true to yourself, your meaning and your story and the way you write must reflect this.
I went on from The Liar’s Club to read Karr’s second memoir, Lit, which tells of her failed marriage, her battle with alcoholism and the jerky progression of her career as a writer. Let me give you an example of her voice, found on the page that faced me when I cracked open Lit’s spine at a random place:
“By age thirty, I’m not writing squat, which I blame on my ramped-up consulting schedule, knowing full well my favorite poet was a full-time insurance exec. Warren keeps urging me to deal with my complicated family on the page, but that seems too damp-eyed, though even I know the crap I crank out referring to Homer and Virgil is pretentious before Warren carefully pens pretentious on page bottom.”
You see what I mean about voice? Sure, it’s about what you write about, but it also about how you say it. If you are still confused, go read Mary Karr.
