Prologue: Open Letter to My Son

she's such a good writer omg

Escape from the Tropic of Squalor

leaving TX for CA as a teenager, college & beginning to write, applying for grad school

Flashdance

her marriage etc

Self Help

the marriage starts to unravel; she turns to alcohol and comes close to committing suicide

Being Who You Are Is Not a Disorder

hospitalization, divorce, trying to date again

Caveat Emptor

Preface: Welcome to My Chew Toy

1. The Past’s Vigor

2. The Truth Contract Twixt Writer and Reader

3. Why Not to Write a Memoir: Plus a Pop Quiz to Protect the Bleeding & Box Out the Rigid

4. A Voice Conjures the Human Who Utters It

5. Don’t Try This at Home: The Seductive, Narcissistic Count

6. Sacred Carnality

7. How to Choose a Detail

8. Hucksters, the Deluded, and Big Fat Liars

9. Interiority and Inner Enemy—Private Agonies Read Deeper Than External Whammies

10. On Finding the Nature of Your Talent

11. The Visionary Maxine Hong Kingston

12. Dealing with Beloveds (On and Off the Page)

13. On Information, Facts, and Data

14. Personal Run-Ins with Fake Voices

15. On Book Structure and the Order of Information

16. The Road to Hell Is Paved with Exaggeration

17. Blind Spots and False Selves

18. Truth Hunger: The Public and Private Burning of Kathryn Harrison

19. Old-School Technologies for the Stalled Novice

20. Major Reversals in Cherry and Lit

21. Why Memoirs Fail

22. An Incomplete Checklist to Stave Off Dread

23. Michael Herr: Start in Kansas, End in Oz

24. Against Vanity: In Praise of Revision

Introduction

by Mary Karr