Revealing the truth, as she knows it

Ever since the runaway success of "The Liars' Club," memoir fans have relied on Mary Karr to give them the raw truth in prose so subtly but expertly polished that you admire its beauty without ever smelling the lacquer. "The Liars' Club" and "Cherry" explored Karr's gritty and eccentric Texas childhood and adolescence. Now with "Lit," Karr turns her poet's eye toward the complications, heartbreak and unexpected redemptions of adulthood, including her devastating battle with alcoholism and subsequent conversion to Catholicism.

The Star Tribune caught up with Karr by phone at her home in New York City.

Q "Lit" starts with "An Open Letter to My Son," where your first line is "Any way I tell this story is a lie." While memoir writing is certainly subjective, your publisher takes pains to verify that this account of your life is true. What were you trying to get across with that acknowledgment?

A There is nothing in there that is made up or didn't happen. I wrote this book three times, and it took me seven years. I threw away 1,000 finished pages. That's because I couldn't get it right. That doesn't mean I made anything up. It means my angle on things was psychologically false. The minute you start to write about Point A instead of Point B, you've begun to shape the story.

Q The dialogue in "Lit" contains no quotation marks. Is this another way of getting at the idea that memory can be fuzzy?

A It's not like I have a video camera strapped to my chest as I go through the world. One reason I think memoir has had a little run for the past 10 years or so is that we've given up on historical authority. We've given up on the church. We don't believe the Bible is true anymore. We don't believe what the history books or science books say. So I think there is a lot of value placed on the subjective. I was trying to convey that this is in my head. It's supposed to make it more intimate.

Q You wrote "The Liars Club" during a boom time for memoir. Today, the genre has taken some serious hits on the credibility front. Given that change, was there a difference in the way you approached this book?

Q You attended Macalester College and part of "Lit" is set in the Twin Cities. What was it like moving to the Midwest from rural Texas?

A I was freaked out by how nice everybody was. I thought they were jacking me around and teasing me when they were being nice. The restraint of the Midwest I found comforting, too. But strangely the only people who made sense to me were the black kids from inner-city Detroit, who made more sense to me than the average white girl. I loved Macalester. People really changed my life there.

Q Did your time here have any influence on your writing?

A Etheridge Knight was there in the community after I left Macalester. I knew Trish Hampl when I was 19 years old. I heard my first symphony in the Twin Cities. I saw the first really great theater there. The Walker Art Center -- you guys take that stuff for granted. But coming from this backwater where I grew up, I couldn't believe it. I thought the kids were so strange that they weren't going to museums every weekend.

Q One theme of "Lit" is that poetry matters. What place do you think poetry has in today's world?

Q "Lit" explores a lot of intensely personal and emotional territory, including your battle with alcoholism, class tensions and your conversion to not just Christianity but Catholicism. Was there a topic that was particularly difficult for you to write about?

A Writing about the spiritual journey was the hardest. Let's face it: Crucifixion is a better plot than resurrection because it has drama. It was hard to enter the state of belief that wasn't alienating or proselytizing. The people who do have faith don't need me yapping to them about it. Mary McCarthy, Trish Hampl, Dalai Lama, those people are more spiritually involved than I am. They have God's hand guiding theirs in a way I probably don't.

Q For fans of "The Liars' Club," "Lit" gives not only a behind-the-scenes tour of how that book came to be, but also resolution on your most enduring characters -- your now-deceased parents. What was it like writing about them this time around?

A You give yourself a sense of the power of resurrection. You are with those people. You write about them in a way that they are still alive for you. It's so great to see them in your writing. There was a great joy in that.