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Dec 19, 2016DBRL_KrisA rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Mary Karr's childhood reminds me of my own. Which is surprising in a way; she grew up in a small oil town on the coast in Texas, while I grew up in (mostly) a small farming town in Missouri. Her daddy was a union laborer for an oil company, while mine worked in middle management in a factory. She had one sister; I'm right smack in the middle of seven kids. But it's the small town, lower middle class upbringing that brings to mind my own childhood. Playing (and fighting) with the neighborhood kids; exploring the nearby creek or woods or pasture; fighting with your siblings (but also fighting along with your siblings against the other neighborhood kids). There are definitely some differences - my mom didn't get an inheritance, move us to Colorado, and divorce our dad in order to marry some drunk bartender. We didn't ride horses or get stung by a man-o-war or hide from a drunk, knife-wielding parent (or protect a step-father from a drunk, pistol-wielding parent). We didn't (as far as my parents know) use the kind of "colorful" language Mary and (especially) her sister Lecia used against the other neighborhood kids. But, reading this memoir, I still felt at times like I was reliving my own childhood.