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The art of memoir / Mary Karr.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York, NY : Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, [2015]Copyright date: ©2015Edition: First editionDescription: xxiii, 229 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780062223067
  • 0062223062
Subject(s):
Contents:
Caveat emptor -- Welcome to my chew toy -- The past's vigor -- The truth contract twixt writer and reader -- Why not to write a memoir: Plus a pop quiz to protect the bleeding & box out the rigid -- A voice conjures the human who utters it -- Don't try this at home: The seductive, narcissistic count -- Sacred carnality -- How to choose a detail -- Hucksters, the deluded, and big fat liars -- Interiority and inner enemy: Private agonies read deeper than external whammies -- On finding the nature of your talent -- The visionary Maxine Hong Kingston -- Dealing with beloveds (on and off the page) -- On information, facts, and data -- Personal run-ins with fake voices -- On book structure and the order of information -- The road to hell is paved with exaggeration -- Blind spots and false selves -- Truth hunger: The public and private burning of Kathryn Harrison -- Old-school technologies for the stalled novice -- Major reversals in Cherry and Lit -- Why memoirs fail -- An incomplete checklist to stave off dread -- Michael Herr: Start in Kansas, end in Oz -- Against vanity: In praise of revision.
Summary: Author of three memoirs of her own, Mary Karr synthesizes her expertise as graduate writing professor and therapy patient, writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and "black belt sinner," providing an irreverent window into the mechanics and art of the form. Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. In addition, all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends after writing about them get told -- and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth. As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past. Anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.
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Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 809.9359 K18 Checked out 06/08/2024 33111008068138
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Bestselling author and renowned professor Mary Karr offers a master class in the essential elements of great memoir--delivered with her signature wit, insight, and candor.

Credited with sparking the current memoir explosion, Mary Karr's The Liars' Club spent more than a year at the top of the New York Times list. She followed with two other smash bestsellers: Cherry and Lit, which were critical hits as well.

For thirty years Karr has also taught the form, winning teaching prizes at Syracuse. (The writing program there produced such acclaimed authors as Cheryl Strayed, Keith Gessen, and Koren Zailckas.) In The Art of Memoir, she synthesizes her expertise as professor and therapy patient, writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and "black belt sinner," providing a unique window into the mechanics and art of the form that is as irreverent, insightful, and entertaining as her own work in the genre.

Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. (Plus all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends get told-- and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth.) As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past; anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

Joining such classics as Stephen King's On Writing and Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, The Art of Memoir is an elegant and accessible exploration of one of today's most popular literary forms--a tour de force from an accomplished master pulling back the curtain on her craft.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-226).

Author of three memoirs of her own, Mary Karr synthesizes her expertise as graduate writing professor and therapy patient, writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and "black belt sinner," providing an irreverent window into the mechanics and art of the form. Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. In addition, all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends after writing about them get told -- and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth. As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past. Anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

Caveat emptor -- Welcome to my chew toy -- The past's vigor -- The truth contract twixt writer and reader -- Why not to write a memoir: Plus a pop quiz to protect the bleeding & box out the rigid -- A voice conjures the human who utters it -- Don't try this at home: The seductive, narcissistic count -- Sacred carnality -- How to choose a detail -- Hucksters, the deluded, and big fat liars -- Interiority and inner enemy: Private agonies read deeper than external whammies -- On finding the nature of your talent -- The visionary Maxine Hong Kingston -- Dealing with beloveds (on and off the page) -- On information, facts, and data -- Personal run-ins with fake voices -- On book structure and the order of information -- The road to hell is paved with exaggeration -- Blind spots and false selves -- Truth hunger: The public and private burning of Kathryn Harrison -- Old-school technologies for the stalled novice -- Major reversals in Cherry and Lit -- Why memoirs fail -- An incomplete checklist to stave off dread -- Michael Herr: Start in Kansas, end in Oz -- Against vanity: In praise of revision.

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