What do you do with a memoir that details in four pages a graphic display of child molestation?

What if its the author as a young child that’s the subject…

Does that change the make up of the story from autobiography to something more sinister–like pornography?

Does it matter that this is an event in the past? Does it make it any less real or problematic?

Those were some of the questions I asked myself as I finished reading Mary Karr’s 1995 memoir .

The book was Karr’s first memoir [she’s since written two more–Cherry and Lit–I’ve read neither of them] and the idea to write it came from her friend Tobias Wolfe.

In her own words, Carr said it was an agonizing task that involved a mountain of emotional labor–not just to revisit dark places but to merely get the words on the page. Here she is in a :

I would lie down on the floor and go to sleep after about an hour and a half’s work. Literally go to sleep like I had been driving all night. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I went to a shrink and said, ‘Am I repressing something, bah bah bah bah.’ And she said, ‘Well, I think you are just really exhausted by it.’

Fortunately, her herculean effort paid off.

The Essence of The Liar’s Club

She wrote a compelling, hilarious and haunting autobiography about growing up as a child in Leechfield, Texas–oil refinery country–raised by a hard-working, hard-drinking, but sturdy and surprisingly gentle father who managed to marry a displaced New Yorker living on the outskirts of madness.

The book ended up being a runaway bestseller–a justified judgment given the quality of the writing and a decent payoff for the task of exposing herself.

But the question is–did she go too far?

In Carr’s defense, as a child she played the hand she was dealt–and as a child that’s sometimes all you can do.

What you get is a gritty, foul-mouthed eight-year-old girl who fought hard for survival and security, revenge and love–things hard to come by when you have a mother who’s head is in a perennial cloud of vodka, methamphetamine diet pills, suspect men, brooding jazz and fatalistic literature.

So it comes as no surprise when I tell you that Karr’s mother lacked a woeful amount of judgment, most clearly seen in her decision to allow questionable men to babysit her daughters.

The scene was terrible. And you saw it like a dark storm slowly sweeping in from the sea. At one point I wondered if Carr was going to actually go there. Or would she pull out early enough to avoid the explicit?

I had hope she’d pull out. Earlier in the book Carr handled a case of rape very sympathetically without giving an uncomfortable amount of detail.

That’s why it surprised me that she dove into this particular scene with no holds barred.

Where I’d Like to Have Not Gone

At least that’s my guess because the moment I saw where she was going and had no intention of stopping, I bailed and counted the pages before the scene was over.

Four pages.

Granted, as I quickly skimmed the pages looking for the end (it came, by the way, when the chapter ended) the scene covered mostly emotional territory, like her mental activity during the event.

And I’m glad to say she never revisited the topic again.

But here’s the deal: This scene would NEVER make it to the movie screen. In fact, if you owned a video of this event, you’d be arrested.

Why, then,  is it okay in a book? I argue it’s not. It permits us to go to dark places we should never visit.

Naturally, this uncorks a litany of problems, namely censorship. But should the world thank Mary Carr for “going there” on this particular topic and being candid about it?

No.

All this does is allow us to inch our moral boundaries back, calibrated by our sense of appropriate indiscretion–and that’s, unfortunately, what you get when you don’t have absolute boundaries.

Gore Vidal–who defended cannabis laws–once said that some people should be told not to do drugs.

I agree. And the same goes for morality. Mary Karr’s book would’ve been a runaway bestseller without this scene.

A Curious–If Not Disturbing–Side Note about the The Liar’s Club

This book is viewed as the book that jump-started the memoir explosion. Naturally, in it’s wake we have self-expression without guardrails.

One has to wonder where this will take us if we don’t provide those boundaries.

Twenty-two very short essays explain why the underclass exists and how it impacts society. Based on the book Life at the Bottom.

I’ve been on a recent reading tear…knocking out some .

Granted, it’s self-induced. I want to read 50 books this year…

And review about half of them.

So far in 2009 I’ve completed reviews for Spectacular Sins and The Shack.

The following review is on Theodore Darymple’s –the Worldview That Makes the Underclass.

Who Is Theodore Darymple?

First thing you should know:  is the pen name of a British physician and psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and prison.

Apparently, Darymple has seen it all.

He’s heard and observed the every conceivable twist of depravity among his patients. Depravity that exceeds most people’s experience.

It’s the depravity of the underclass.

Life at the Bottom is a searing account of why the underclass exists…and even persists…and the implications for our society as a whole.

Who Is the Underclass?

The underclass are poor people whose lives are dominated by violence, crime and degradation.

Darymple’s unique contribution is his suggestion that the pathologies of the underclass are a result of the ideas that have filtered down from intellectuals…namely cultural relativism, sexual freedom and destruction of the family.

Darymple charges, “They consider the purity of their ideas to be more important than the actual consequences of their ideas.”

What follows are the book’s 22 chapters condensed down into 22 very short summaries. If you want more, you’ll have to read the book. But hopefully this will give you a taste. Enjoy.

The Knife Went In
The language of prisoners teaches much about the dishonest fatalism of the underclass. “The knife just went in” is a murderers plea to do exactly as he chooses without being held responsible.

Goodbye, Cruel World
Overdose victims and attempted suicides are prevalent in welfare states where  mindless entertainment and impulsive–often destructive–personal relationships cure boredom. Gestures towards death equal a way out of crisis.

Reader, She Married Him–Alas
Multiculturalists want a society where all cultural values are valid. Yet, allow everyone to rule as they please, we fall into anarchy and civil war. Groups can’t have individual rights. Absolute rule must reign.

Tough Love
After stabbing, strangling or merely striking their partners, violent men take an overdose for three reasons: to avoid a court appearance, apply emotional blackmail and present their rage as a medical condition.

It Hurts, Therefore I Am
Tattoos are a good indicator of a mind bent towards criminality.

Festivity and Menace
The Englishman may pursue his pleasure hotly, but once found, it should require zero mental contribution. In fact, it should blot out the memory of his life.

We Don’t Want No Education
In the wake of the English educational system failure, the underclass comes away with a profound aversion to anything that smacks of intelligence, education or culture.

Uncouth Chic
The English underclass life is obsessed with the easily inflamed ego,the  quick loss of temper, the violence, the scattering of illegitimate children and the self-exculpation by use of impersonal foul language.

The Heart of a Heartless World
In an age of relativism, random violence, unpunished crime and indifference, people seek certainty, transcendent meaning, refuge in divine law and community. Thus, the church.

There’s No Damned Merit In It
British underclass desires wealth but wishes to deny it to others. And among those methods of acquiring wealth they approve–gambling, dog races and bingo.

Choosing to Fail
There’s a mystery among the children of immigrants to England: some choose to succeed while others choose to fail. The operative word: choice.

Free to Choose
The chronic homeless suffer, but not for reasons we imagine. One man longed for premarital freedom and the joys of irresponsibility. So, he deserted his wife, child and job in favor of drinking all day.

What Is Poverty?
Perhaps a better description of the British underclass living conditions would be self-induced squalor.

Do Sties Make Pigs?
Public housing tenancy is to psychopaths what tenure is to academics: no better invitation to irresponsibility could possibly be imagined.

Lost in the Ghetto
Intelligent and curious people born in a slum cannot imagine a worse fate. It’s a long, slow torture. Boredom, persecution and suicide await.

And Dying Thus Around Us Every Day
Not surprising, the competence of public servants declines with the general level of education. But some demonstrate such a gross lack of common sense that something other than ignorance has to be at work.

The Rush from Judgment
The underclass use nonjudgmentalism as a prophylactic against learning from experience–God forbid that someone would appear judgmental over stupid.

What Causes Crime?
Crime is caused by a criminal who decides to commit it. No other way around it.

How Criminologists Foster Crime
Criminological writing generally conceives of criminals as objects: billiard balls responding mechanically to other billiard balls that impinge on them. Who can blame them for their social behavior?

Policemen in Wonderland
Britain’s new legions of ill-educated, uncouth and depraved young men can get away with anything short of murder because the police have lost the vision to reduce crime.

Zero Tolerance
The British intellectual class has adopted the poor’s attitude to cops: they all suck. This attitude was forged from a combination of ignorance, dishonesty and fashion.

Seeing Is Not Believing
Violence, vulgarity and educational failure of modern English life are hard to deny. Yet, complacency and denial dominate intellectual liberals. Why? Tackling these issues would encroach on their drive for momentary pleasure.

Your Turn

So, tell me: ever read this book? Even if you haven’t, do you disagree with Dalrymple’s argument? Anything you’d like to add?

I loook forward to your thoughts.