First Lady of Memoir or What's That Smell?

I've never read Mary Karr's books and am not commenting on their quality in any way, but when Liar's Club arrived in the mid 90's, it gave license to everyone who ever had an alcoholic parent, grew up poor or stubbed a toe to tell all about their miserable lives.

The train keeps running, and it doesn't help when Karr tells of her take for the new book.

"After "Cherry" came out in 2000, two separate publishers approached Ms. Karr with "a big fat honking advance" of nearly $1 million for a third memoir, she said. She turned them down because she felt she couldn't face her recent history. But two years later, she found herself writing the first chapter of "Lit," a prologue addressed to her son. Ms. Karr and her publisher, HarperCollins, wouldn't reveal what her advance was, but Ms. Karr described it as "a s—load."

Perfect.