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Book cherry by mary karr6/22/2023 ![]() Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy.įort Smith, Arkansas. (The passage is on page 117 of the book, and the emphases added are mine.)ĭamned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says. Her father comes into her room with a bushel of plums, having driven from Texas to Arkansas to get them for her. I found the events of the following morning quite touching. ![]() ![]() After her parents discuss amongst themselves that plums are out of season, she goes to bed. (Incidentally, I think this adds something to the story– there’s no sense that she’s somehow manipulated sympathy or love from them as a result of threatening to hurt herself.) After a while, her father asks her if there’s any food she could stomach, and all she thinks she could eat would be a plum. Despite their many flaws (which are discussed at length throughout the book), both her mother and father tenderly nurse her, without suspecting the suicide attempt– they attribute the sickness to bad food or a stomach bug. The backstory to the passage below is that the author, who is about fourteen years old at the time, attempted suicide by swallowing a number of pills she was unsuccessful and wound up sick in front of the toilet when her parents came home. I’ve been reading one of Mary Karr’s wonderful memoirs, Cherry, and the chapter I just finished ends with a touching story of an act of love by the author’s parents that she credits with profoundly changing her life– I thought it was worth sharing here. ![]()
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