A review by booksaremysuperpower
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr

2.0

Disappointing! I was expecting more of a writer's insight on writing an actual memoir, but instead Mary Karr's book reads as a messy half-tutorial, half-literature class book on the genre itself. She even admits in the introduction that she's not quite sure what this book is supposed to be about. Aside from a few gems on what constitutes a better memoir over a mediocre one, and how to confront the whole sticky memory issue in memoir, the book is a confusing compilation of anecdote and literary commentary. The chapter on Nabokov's memoir "Speak. Memory" was so hard to follow that I ending up skipping most of it. Karr is unnecessarily verbose and hops around themes and analysis to the point where I wondered how much her own students ('some of them Ivy educated', as she frequently mentions) can follow this work.

This is definitely NOT a book for beginner writers in the genre. I am curious about Karr's own memoirs, but I do not recommend The Art of Memoir as an addition to anyone's collection.