SOURCE: Churchill, Sue. Review of Viper Rum, by Mary Karr. Southern Humanities Review 34, no. 1 (winter 2000): 97-100.

In the following review, Churchill expounds on the recurring thematic motifs in Viper Rum and analyzes the impact of Karr's struggles with her aging mother, the death of her father, and alcoholism on her verse.

In her first book of poetry, Abacus (1987), Mary Karr spoke as a “distant, contemporary cousin” of Diogenes and used the persona to broaden the implications of her experience. In Viper Rum, Christ replaces the Greek Cynic, and Karr's life becomes a contemporary testing ground for Catholic thought and symbol. The twenty-nine poems of Viper Rum, billed as a “continuation” of her bestselling memoir, The Liars' Club (1995), describe Karr's middle-aged struggle with alcoholism, the death of her father, and the deterioration of her mother. To label Viper Rum confessional and read it primarily as autobiography, however, is to...