So, today I'm supposed to be reviewing Mary Karr's memoir, Lit. However, I - being the bonehead that I am - somehow failed to realize that it is the third installment in a series of memoirs. Now, y'all know about my literary OCD. What? You don't? Well, I cannot stand to read books in a series out of order. Therefore, I know have both Liar's Club and Cherry on reserve at the library. As soon as the books come in, I will be reading and reviewing them as well as Lit. Definitely stay tuned for that. In the meantime, here's the blurb from the front flap of Lit:

The Liar's Club brought to vivid, indelible life Mary Karr's hardscrabble Texas childhood. Cherry, her account of her adolescence, "continued to set the literary standard for making the personal universal" (Entertainment Weekly). Now Lit follows the self-professed blackbelt sinner's descent into the inferno of alcholism and madness - and to her astonishing resurrection.

Karr's longing for a solid family seems secure when her marriage to a handsome, Shakespeare-quoting bluebood poet produces a son they adore. But she can't outrun her apocalyptic past. She drinks herself into the same numbness that nearly devoured her charismatic but troubled mother, reaching the brink of suicide. A hair-raising stint in "The Mental Marriott," with an oddball tribe of gurus and saviors, awakens her to the possibility of joy and leads her to an unlikely faith. Not since Saint Augustine cried, "Give me chastity, Lord - but not yet!" has a conversion story rung with such dark hilarity.

Lit is about getting drunk and getting sober; becoming a mother by letting go of a mother; learning to write by learning to live. Written with Karr's relentless honesty, unflinching self-scrutiny, and irreverent, lacerating humor, it is a truly electrifying story of how to grow up - as only Mary Karr can tell it.

Interesting, huh?

If you want to see what other, more on-the-ball reviewers have to say about Lit, check out the other stops on Karr's tour:

Wednesday, July 7th: Book Club Classics
Monday, July 12th: Rundpinne
Wednesday, July 14th: Nonsuch Books
Thursday, July 15th: Fizzy Thoughts
Thursday, July 22ed: The Girl from the Ghetto
Wednesday, July 28th: Chefdruck Musings
Thursday, July 29th: Raging Bibliomania
Friday, July 30th: Chick Lit Reviews.com
Monday, August 2nd: The 3 R’s: Reading, ‘Riting, and Randomness
Tuesday, August 3rd: Absorbed in Words
Wednesday, August 4th: Sasha and the Silverfish
Thursday, August 5th: Tales of a Capricious Reader