The Liars' Club

by Mary Karr

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Chapters 9-11 Summary

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Mary describes the family’s move to Colorado as happening “wholly by accident.” After Charlie returns home, the family takes a road trip to the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair. They are sidetracked when Charlie suddenly commands J.P. to stop driving. The family ends up in Cascade, Colorado, where Charlie uses Grandma’s inheritance money to buy a stone lodge that hangs over the side of a mountain. Mary describes their new home as “fancy,” reminiscent of “some ancient castle.” She describes their new life as a scene from a Disney movie in which characters ride horses, collect wood, fish for trout, and watch bears wrestle. Charlie buys horses for the girls—“Big Enough” for Mary, and “Sure Enough” for Lecia. Mary loves horses and she describes being overcome by a sense of peace riding on Big Enough’s back.

However, not everything is so idyllic and carefree. Charlie spends most of her time in the town bars. She insists on staying in Colorado, but J.P. protests that he only has three weeks vacation time and he has to go back to work in the oil fields. Eventually, Charlie and J.P. decide to divorce. They give Mary and Lecia the option to decide where and with whom they would like to live, “as if setting out two ice cream flavors we got to pick.” Recognizing their obligation to look out for their mother, the girls decide to stay in Colorado. Mary is distraught and tries to fit herself in her father’s duffel bag. In the morning, before leaving for Texas, J.P. finds her in the bag and tells her to get out or she’ll “break a fella’s heart.”

In Colorado, Charlie marries a barkeep named Hector. She insists Mary and Lecia call him daddy. Mary, however, refuses, saying “it’ll be a cold day in hell” before she treats Hector like a father. Both girls miss their father, and they send him letters and call him as frequently as possible, usually with little response. Mary sympathizes with her father and his situation, saying that in those days, divorced fathers usually left their children with their mothers and treated them like abandoned pups anyway.

Charlie moves the family to a city in Colorado called Antelope, luring the girls with the prospect of a bigger, more exciting city. However, the girls are sorely disappointed to discover that Antelope is rundown and grim, lit “only by a few beer signs.” However, Mary begins to prosper in school there. She sets an unprecedented record by moving up eighteen reading levels and twelve math levels in a week. However, she still continues to pick fights, specifically with a girl named Big Bertha.

Charlie befriends two men at the bars, Gordon and Joey, who help run errands for Charlie and drive Lecia and Mary around when Charlie has headaches from drinking too much. Mary notices how Charlie’s health worsens. She grows thin from binging on diet pills and is easily irritated by simple requests, such as when Mary asks for lunch money. Charlie spends her time reading books by men with “unpronounceable names” about existentialism. Lecia and Mary dare not mention the word “suicide” to their mom, because they worry that saying it might actually cause it.

Chapters 12-13 Summary

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Charlie continues to binge drink. She even provides Mary with some liquor to help her sleep. Charlie’s despondency and misery begins to affect Mary. She describes her life as “so gray and grainy that not one [day] stands unblurred from any other.” Then, in an incident she describes as a “storm cloud...

(This entire section contains 330 words.)

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getting dense and heavy,” her babysitter violates her and forces her to perform fellatio.

Charlie and Hector fight incessantly and to the point of being out of control. One night, Hector calls Lecia a bitch, which throws Charlie into a rage. Charlie points her pistol at Hector, and while at first Hector pleads for his life, he eventually stops caring and coaxes Charlie into shooting him. Lecia and Mary throw themselves over Hector in order to save him. Charlie finally calms down when Mary fetches a neighbor to intervene.

That night, Lecia calls her father and tells him to buy two plane tickets. Joey accompanies the girls on their plane ride home. When J.P. finally sees his daughters, he is overwhelmed with emotion to see his daughters and embraces them. J.P., Lecia, and Mary sleep in the same bed, with J.P. in the middle. He breaks down and begins to cry. J.P. asks the girls to pray that their mother will rejoin them.

Their prayers are answered when Charlie arrives unannounced with Hector to pick up some clothes. When Hector insults Charlie and tells her to “pull her ass in gear,” J.P. drags Hector out of his sports car and beats Hector until he bleeds profusely, which makes Mary “truly glad.” Charlie drops Hector off at the emergency room and returns to J.P., grateful to him that he had stood up for her against a man who had disrespected her. After that night, Charlie completely forgets about Hector. Charlie and J.P. slow dance and as Mary writes, Charlie “stayed with Daddy till his death, stayed well into her own dotage.”

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Part 1: Texas, 1961

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Part 3: Texas Again, 1980