Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Karr, Mary - Elizabeth Powers (essay date June 1997)

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Elizabeth Powers (essay date June 1997)

SOURCE: Powers, Elizabeth. “Doing Daddy Down.” Commentary 103, no. 6 (June 1997): 38-41.

[In the following essay, Powers examines The Liars' Club in conjunction with other contemporary American memoirs that focus on father-daughter relationships. Powers praises Karr for “grafting her story to our oldest literary roots.”]

When I was a child, there were times when I thought my mother should leave my father. Children only slowly get a feel for the limits on action: if, I reasoned, my parents still had checks in their checkbook, then why could they not write one to purchase a new car (or bike, etc.)? If my mother sometimes felt as much pain as she clearly did because of my father, then why could not she and I, and later my sister and brother, simply move to Anaheim (one of my dream destinations, home of Disneyland and near movie studios that I hoped to crack) and start over again? My...

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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