Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-226).

Author of three memoirs of her own, Mary Karr synthesizes her expertise as graduate writing professor and therapy patient, writer and spiritual seeker, recovered alcoholic and "black belt sinner," providing an irreverent window into the mechanics and art of the form. Anchored by excerpts from her favorite memoirs and anecdotes from fellow writers' experience, The Art of Memoir lays bare Karr's own process. In addition, all those inside stories about how she dealt with family and friends after writing about them get told -- and the dark spaces in her own skull probed in depth. As she breaks down the key elements of great literary memoir, she breaks open our concepts of memory and identity, and illuminates the cathartic power of reflecting on the past. Anybody with an inner life or complicated history, whether writer or reader, will relate.

Caveat emptor -- Welcome to my chew toy -- The past's vigor -- The truth contract twixt writer and reader -- Why not to write a memoir : plus a pop quiz to protect the bleeding & box out the rigid -- A voice conjures the human who utters it -- Don't try this at home : the seductive, narcissistic count -- Sacred carnality -- How to choose a detail -- Hucksters, the deluded, and big fat liars -- Interiority and inner enemy : private agonies read deeper than external whammies -- On finding the nature of your talent -- The visionary Maxine Hong Kingston -- Dealing with beloveds (on and off the page) -- On information, facts, and data -- Personal run-ins with fake voices -- On book structure and the order of information -- The road to hell is paved with exaggeration -- Blind spots and false selves -- Truth hunger : the public and private burning of Kathryn Harrison -- Old-school technologies for the stalled novice -- Major reversals in Cherry and Lit -- Why memoirs fail -- An incomplete checklist to stave off dread -- Michael Herr : start in Kansas, end in Oz -- Against vanity : in praise of revision.