The author, a poet, recounts her difficult childhood growing up in a Texas oil town

A poet's account of her journey toward adulthood follows her coming of age near the isolated logging camps of northern Idaho and considers how geography and faith shaped her sense of identity

Mary Karr grew up in East Texas refinery town in a volatile and defiantly loving family. This memoir looks back at life with a painter mother, seven times married, whose outlaw spirit could tip over into psychosis, and a heavy-drinking, fist-swinging father who liked nothing better than to spin tales with his cronies at the Liars' Club.