The Liars' Club - Picador Classic (Paperback)

Harrowing but funny . . . A father prone to brawls; a heavy-drinking mother who teetered on the verge of self-destruction; a grandmother who carried a hacksaw in her handbag. But through it all shines humour, warmth and genuine love. - Sunday Times

Her grandmother carried a hacksaw in her handbag, her mother hit the bottle, her home was once voted one of the ten ugliest towns on the planet and to cap it all, she was raped . . . What makes this such extraordinary reading is that, far from being a catalogue of horrors, The Liars' Club is often very funny. - Guardian

The Liars' Club is written by a master of poetically slangy prose, a language so alive it makes the telling of acutely painful experiences seem like child's play. You relax into a light adventure or innocent beauty, wholly unprepared for the sudden jolts of harrowing violence experienced by the tiny "Little Mary". You cry at her dark loneliness, you rejoice at her humour and defiance. When you finish the last chapter, you quite simply celebrate her survival. - Elena Lappin, Independent

Astonishing . . . One of the most dazzling and moving memoirs to come along in years. - New York Times

It's difficult to believe that childhood rape, mental instability, arson and lingering death could produce a book in any way uplifting, but that's what Mary Karr achieves in this splendid memoir, characterised by gallows humour and unflinching fortitude . . . Exceptionally powerful. - Observer

Breathtakingly shrewd and loving - Independent

Utterly Gripping - Margaret Forster, Sunday Times

You`ll want to forget it and won't be able to. - Zadie Smith, Guardian