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...