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I wonder if finding your faith helped your writing. You say in Lit, when you’re cautiously becoming Catholic, “It isn’t the ritual of the high Mass that impresses me. But the people—their collective surrender. If I can’t do reverence to that, how dead are my innards?” Does that acceptance of surrender help with your confidence? Your voice is so self-critical. You don’t even give yourself credit for a good suicide attempt. You were like, lamest suicide attempt ever!
Well, the shrinks make a big deal out of it—it was a suicidal gesture, that’s what they call it. I didn’t actually put my hands on myself, so I’m a fuck-up. We know that. But yes, [my faith is] unbelievably helpful. And maybe it’s no different than people doing the Power of Now or whatever. I think the Holy Spirit takes a lot of forms.
I really do write based on prayer. You could see that as talking to your most sane self or your sober self. Somebody said to me, “So, you think you’ve had all this success because God likes you better than other writers?” And I said, “Absolutely!” Because of my faith, I do have a sense that I’m supposed to be alive on the planet. Which, given the way I was brought up, I didn’t exactly have going in.
Does that make sense? Talking about spiritual matters to a secular audience is like doing card tricks on the radio. It’s like, “This is really cool, everybody,” and they’re like, “Yeah, OK!” So I know that it sounds a little nutty.
I don’t it sounds that nutty, and I’m definitely part of the secular audience. I read you and Anne Lamott, and you’re both people who never thought they would be spiritual but have become spiritual, and the way you write about spirituality is very comforting. It is self-acceptance, ultimately, so I think done well enough it can be relatable.
It’s really just about not wanting to kill people on the subway. It’s also about not wanting to kill myself when I get home for wanting to kill people on the subway.
I talk about the difference between happiness and joy. I can honestly say I was depressed for so much of my life that I think I knew how to be excited or enthusiastic, but I certainly didn’t know anything about joy. Just that simple [feeling], when you run into the ocean.
The way you wrote about your friendship with Meredith, your best friend from high school, in Cherry, was such an honest portrayal of female friendship. That’s something that people rarely get right—it’s either utterly saccharine or completely catty. Why do you think that’s difficult to do honestly?
It’s hard to write about anything really intimate. It’s hard to write about sex and it’s hard to write about laughing. To meet someone who read books, who was my age, was just the greatest gift. I just can’t imagine what my teen years would have been like without it.
Are you still actively teaching students?
Oh, yeah.
What sort of advice do you give them, or have you ever counseled them to not write about something?
I usually tell them that I don’t know what they’re supposed to do. I say that I think most writers have a failure of character, a failure to accept what’s being assigned to you to write. And that often what we’re most talented at we resist, because we think it’s silly, or small, or not good enough. I teach with George Saunders, a brilliant fiction writer, and he’s so funny. He went to Syracuse when Ray Carver and Toby Wolff were there, and he kept trying to write these gritty, minimalist, realistic stories, and then he’d have some bizarre thing in the middle of it, and Ray and Toby would kill themselves, and tell him, “Just do more of this! Just do this all the time!” And he’d be like, “I want to be a man!”
We often have a way that we think we’re going to correct ourselves in the work that leads us to deny the talent we’re assigned or the subjects we’re assigned or the style we’re assigned. That’s certainly been true for me and I often see it with young writers.
Jessica Grose is the managing editor of Double X and the co-author of Love, Mom: Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home. Click here to follow her on Twitter.
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Comments
@Lorikay4 - So are you going to read the book or not?
By: mollyern | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 18:15
Your opinions are yours to have and free to express. I'm just not sure what relevance they have to this specific subject - i.e. an interview with Karr about her third memoir.
I'm assuming you haven't read the book yet. In your first post you seem to lean towards not reading it, but equivicate in your latest post.
My post was not calling you a monster (where are you getting that, anyway?) I was calling you out on the fact that you claim Karr's conversion to the Catholic religion "depressed" you. And? So? You yourself don't seem to know what that means. Are you really saying that you reject the opinions and writings of at least 1/4 of the world, assuming that is the number of Catholics in the world?
Anyone is free to read a book with a jaundiced eye depending upon what they know of an author, but the point is that the book still gets read. If we only read the works of people we agree with on religion, politics, and personal habits, what's the point?
You actually chastise Karr for turning to religion instead of her intellect and you haven't even read the book yet, at least I'm assuming you haven't. MY opinion is that people who have a laundry list of objections to a book before it is even read seem a little foolish. It's the same mindset of "don't confuse me with the facts."
You stated your opinions on religion and how to free oneself of addiction. Fair enough. I'm still not sure what they have to do this book or interview or what relevance they have UNTIL YOU READ THE BOOK.
ridiculous
By: lorikay4 | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 10:45
Is it her job to keep my spirits up? Of course not, and my posts do not suggest that.
Life is hard. Problems like addiction and depression are daunting and ruin lives. But they can be faced with one's intellectual capacities, not just emotions, engaged. And because I admire Mary Karr's work, I am interested in how she faces the challenges of life. And I'm not a monster for saying that joining a basically woman-unfriendly religion is not a choice that impresses me. If people put their lives out in the world as part of their art, they are doing so (I think) to seek engagement. If she were of a mind to keep all that off the table, that would be her prerogative. But she didn't, and so my response. Unlike many Christians, I don't predict her damnation because she disagrees with me.
If she joined the Hare Krishnas, heads would shake all around, and there would be criticism and discussion of whether that was a good decision. But no one is allowed to criticize or question the religious choices of another person, it's off limits. It's not polite. Which is bananas, because religion is an idea no different than any other idea, like being a Republican or a vegetarian, and should be as open to debate and criticism as those ideas are.
It's Not Mary Karr's Job to Keep Anyone from Getting Depressed
By: mollyern | Wed, 11/04/2009 - 09:23
If Karr's religious affiliations make one "depressed" that is hardly her problem or her job to fix it.
I find it ironic that so many seem to admire Karr for her honesty, then profess to feelings of "depression" when she talks of her religion with, uh, honesty. I saw these types of self-absorbed posts on another site and frankly they baffle me. She could just as well kept religion out of her book, or not written the book at all, knowing full well how much her choice of religion might "depress" someone.
I'm glad Double X published this interview. I will definitely look for Karr's new book.
sure
By: lorikay4 | Tue, 11/03/2009 - 19:15
She's not responsible for everything the Catholic Church does, but how can anyone know even the 'highlights' of their participation in matters relating to the health and freedom of women still want much to do with them?
I wrote what I wrote because I have a high regard for her intelligence. If you respect someone, you call them out when they do nutty things. Friends don't let friends convert to Catholicism.
Grace abides
By: Bo | Tue, 11/03/2009 - 17:43
Karr isn't responsible for every action of the Roman Catholic Church, no more than every one who voted for Obama is responsible for every action of the Democratic party. Her choice for faith isn't based on logic but on emotion. To turn up your nose at her choice is your choice, but it's a petty and mean-spirited thing to do.
depresses the hell out of me
By: lorikay4 | Tue, 11/03/2009 - 11:16
It depresses the hell out of me that Mary Karr, so wonderfully profane and realistic and unwilling to buy anyone's crap as a writer, has gone and got religion. I adored The Liar's Club, and liked Cherry pretty well, but am now really not sure if I want to read Lit.
Part of me wants to chalk up her conversion entirely to trying to find anything in the world that would help her dry up and get off booze and drugs. And meds only go so far to treat depression, I know. But still, ugh. The Catholic freaking church? Home of people who would rather see young men and women die of AIDS in Africa rather than acknowledge the truth of human behavior and hand them a rubber? These are your saviors, Mary? Please.
If growing up an intelligent misfit in Texas doesn't make someone constitutionally incapable of religion, then I don't know anything.