Sublime

Mary Karr

Mary Karr, Lit: A Memoir (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 239.

The author of a lasting memoir manages to power past the initial defenses, digging past the false self to where the truer one waits to tell the more complicated story.

I was a liar. Even though I lived in a place where everyone knew who I was, I couldn’t help but try to introduce new versions of myself as my interests changed, and as other versions of myself failed to persuade. I was also a thief.

the best ones come from the soul of a human unit oddly compelled to root out the past’s truth for his own deeply felt reasons.

pretty much any truth written deeply and with enough clarity and candor to allow emotional range winds up fascinating me.

The goal of a voice is to speak not with objective authority but with subjective curiosity.