Mary Karr — Memoirs on Creative Process and Finding Gifts in the Suffering | The Tim Ferriss Show

Mary Karr traces her path from a chaotic, unsafe childhood in a small Texas oil-refinery town to becoming one of America's most celebrated memoirists. She discusses how reading and poetry saved her lonely young life, how she 'weaseled' into college, and the brutal toll of excavating traumatic memories to write memoir. A large portion of the conversation centers on getting sober in 1989, the development of an unexpected prayer practice, and her conversion to a Catholic, Ignatian spirituality focused on finding 'god in all things.' She and Tim Ferriss also share candidly about surviving childhood sexual abuse, the writing craft (revision, the commonplace book, memory as a filter), and the idea that curiosity and presence are the antidote to fear.

• Karr reveals she tried to kill herself in grade school by taking aspirin, which led her into therapy unusually early in life.
  00:08:46
• She got sober in 1989 after years of being unable to stop drinking despite trying every method, marking the turning point of her life.
  00:39:29
• Her prayer practice began not from belief but from a sponsor telling her to get on her knees 'for yourself,' which produced unexpected moments of quiet 'south of the neck.'
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• After praying for money on her knees, she received an unsolicited $35,000 grant three weeks later, a story she swears is true.
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• Writing The Liars' Club was so taxing that she would suddenly fall asleep mid-afternoon and sob; she warns aspiring memoirists to treat their trauma before writing about it.
  01:18:50
• She admits she would have kept drinking if her son had been an easy baby, but his chronic illnesses forced her to get sober.
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• Her estranged sister died suddenly of pancreatic cancer that summer, and she found unexpected spiritual gifts in reconnecting with her sister's family.
  01:39:36
• Karr reveals that about 30 percent of her closest male friends reached out after Tim's podcast to describe their own previously hidden experiences with sexual abuse.
  01:43:17

• Karr's mother was married seven times, twice to Mary's father, and had shot at multiple men, leaving bullet holes in the kitchen tile.
  00:05:43
• As a child too short to reach the table, Karr used a water-stained Riverside Shakespeare as a booster seat and memorized speeches from Hamlet and Macbeth.
  00:13:24
• A high-school assistant principal badmouthed her to Macalester College admissions for being a 'bad citizen,' which she believes actually helped her get in.
  00:19:08
• Of the six people Karr lived with after leaving home, four went to jail and two were dead before age 20; only she and one friend got sober and 'made it.'
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• Her hyper-selective Syracuse graduate program receives around 1,200 applications for just 12 positions.
  00:27:33
• Karr opens class by staging a scripted fake fight with colleague George Saunders to demonstrate that memory is a filter, not a perfect recording.
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• She has kept a commonplace book of beautiful language since 1978, on the advice of poet laureate Stanley Kunitz, and has 40 years of index cards with quotes.
  00:38:27
• She threw out roughly 1,200 finished pages of Lit and was about seven years late on her book contract before completing it.
  01:11:00
• At 65, Karr walks four miles each morning, does Pilates three or four times a week, and takes dance classes, saying she has never been happier in her life.
  01:22:35
• Asked what she'd put on a billboard, Karr chose: '90 percent of what's wrong with you could be cured with a hot bath.'
  01:45:21

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