Title: The Liars' Club
Subtitle: A Memoir
First published: 1995
Description: The Texas refinery town of Leechfield, perched on the swampy rim of the Gulf, is famous for mosquitoes and the manufacture of Agent Orange - a place where the only bookstores are religious ones and the restaurants serve only fried food. A handful of the Leechfield oil workers gather regularly at the American Legion Bar to drink salted beer and spin long, improbable tales. They're the Liars' Club. And to the girl whose father is the club's undisputed champion mythmaker, they exude a fatal glamour - one that lifts her from ordinary life.

But there are other lies. Darker, more hidden. Her mother's unimaginable past threatens the family's very sanity. Mary Karr looks back through younger eyes to exorcise those demons: a mad, puritanical grandmother; a vast inheritance squandered in one year flat; endless emptied bottles; and the darknesses inflicted on an eight-year-old girl. This voice explodes with antic, wit, stripped of self-pity. Miraculously, it makes a journey into joy. Here is a "terrific family of liars redeemed by a slow unearthing of truth."
Subjects: Family, Social life and customs, Homes and haunts, Family relationships, Childhood and youth, Intellectual life, American Poets, Families, American Women poets, Poets, biography, Texas, social life and customs, Family, united states, Texas, biography, Homes, Manners and customs, Large type books
Places: Texas, Port Arthur, Port Arthur (Tex.)
People: Mary Karr
Time periods: 20th century