"Astonishing. . . one of the most dazzling and moving memoirs to come along in years. " -Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times"Mary Karr's God-awful childhood has a calamitous appeal. . . the choice in the book is between howling misery and howling laughter, and the reader veers toward laughter. Karr has survived to write a drop-dead reply to the question, 'Ma, what was it like when you were a little girl?'" -Time"This book is so good I thought about sending it out for a back-up opinion. . . it's like finding Beethoven in Hoboken. To have a poet's precision of language and a poet's instinct into people applied to one of the roughest, ugliest places in America is an astonishing event. " -Molly Ivins, The Nation"Elegiac and searching. . . her toughness of spirit, her poetry, her language, her very voice are the agents of rebirth on this difficult, hard-earned journey. " -New York Times Book Review"Bold, blunt, and cinematic. . . nothing short of superb. " -Entertainment Weekly"Overflows with sparkling wit and humor. . . Truth beats powerfully at the heart of this dazzling memoir. " -San Francisco Chronicle"Karr lovingly retells her parents' best lies and drunken extravagances with an ear for bar-stool phraseology and a winking eye for image. The revelations continue to the final page, with a misleading carelessness as seductive as any world-class liar's. " -The New Yorker