Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Karr, Mary - Alix Kates Shulman (review date December 2000)

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Alix Kates Shulman (review date December 2000)

SOURCE: Shulman, Alix Kates. “Hungry for More.” Women's Review of Books 18, no. 3 (December 2000): 19-20.

[In the following review, Shulman argues that, despite some problematic elements with the narrative voice in the volume's second half, Cherry is an admirable and “worthy sequel” to The Liars' Club.]

The plot is an ordinary plot: American girl traverses the tricky terrain of adolescence. First bra, first pimple, first love, first kissing game, first date, first real kiss, first period, first smoke (marijuana, it being the late sixties), first betrayal, first run-in with the principal, first sex. Familiar territory: in its key events Mary Karr's school life in 1960s hardscrabble Texas is remarkably like mine in 1940s suburban Ohio, with a cherry's “market value” surprisingly unchanged.

But Cherry is no ordinary book. Karr is a poet, high on language. She...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Mary Karr (essay date 1991)
   2. Cyra McFadden (review date 16 July 1995)
   3. Scott Donaldson (review date 23 July 1995)
   4. Gaby Wood (review date 19 October 1995)
   5. Elizabeth Young (review date 20 October 1995)
   6. Kate Hubbard (review date 4 November 1995)
   7. William Harmon (review date winter 1997)
   8. Elizabeth Powers (essay date June 1997)
   9. M. Joy Gorence (review date September 1997)
   10. Barbara Jordan (review date 1998)
   11. Judith Kitchen (essay date winter 1998)
   12. Robert McDowell (essay date winter 1999)
   13. Leslie Ullman (review date February 1999)
   14. Eric Murphy Selinger (essay date 2000)
   15. Sue Churchill (review date winter 2000)
   16. Mary Karr and Wendy Smith (interview date 2 October 2000)
   17. Liz Marlantes (review date 12 October 2000)
   18. Joyce Carol Oates (review date 2 November 2000)
   19. Valerie Sayers (review date 3 November 2000)
   20. Alix Kates Shulman (review date December 2000)
   21. Sanford Pinsker (essay date spring 2001)
   22. Jennie Bristow (review date 25 June 2001)
   23. Vicki Woods (review date 30 June 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright