United States History - Northeastern & Middle Atlantic Region, United States Studies, Literary Biography

Extra Innings: A Memoir

Name: Extra Innings: A Memoir
Author: Doris Grumbach
ISBN: 9780393313208

by Doris Grumbach, Grumbach

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Overview

As in Doris Grumbach's widely praised day book, Coming into the End Zone, Extra Innings offers an immense, sometimes funny, sometimes tart, and sometimes very moving account of a closely examined life.

It records an eventful and quotidian year crowded with literary pleasures and pains, the natural beauties and social particulars of life in coastal Maine, the mingled joys and affronts of travel to New York, Washington, Mexico, and the looming presence of illness and mortality. It is, finally, a book about the successful search for home and for inward peace.

Synopsis

As in Doris Grumbach's widely praised day book, Coming into the End Zone, Extra Innings offers an immense, sometimes funny, sometimes tart, and sometimes very moving account of a closely examined life.

Publishers Weekly

When novelist and literary critic Grumbach published her memoir Coming into the End Zone in 1991, it was cause for celebration--for her and for readers educated and inspired by her year of reflections on turning 70 and the process of what she here calls ``coming into old age.'' Now a few years older, Grumbach, who still lives on the coast of Maine, uses the same month-by-month format to record another year of musings and considerations. Often sublime, sometimes mundane, rarely boring, these reflections will appeal especially to readers who live in the world of books. Grumbach writes with grace and precision about her anxiety while waiting for reviews of End Zone ; about what books she is moved to take from her shelves and reread; about conversations with colleagues, friends and her daughters; about friendship, love and loss. PW gets its mention, decribed as ``the Bible of the book trade (sometimes Job, sometimes Revelations, perhaps Exodus?).'' Norton is reissuing Grumbach's novels, The Ladies and The Magician's Girl , in conjunction with this memoir. (Nov.)

About the Author, Doris Grumbach

Doris Grumbach's works available in Norton paperback include her earlier journal, Coming into the End Zone, and the novels Chamber Music, The Magician's Girl, The Ladies, and The Missing Person. Grumbach lives in Sargentville, Maine. Grumbach's new novel, The Book of Knowledge, is being published in hardcover.

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Editorials

Detroit News - Ruth Coughlin

“Quite remarkable. . . . Extra Innings is just that: More time to listen to the music of Doris Grumbach's prose, both poetic and homely. Another chance to appreciate how vividly her life has been lived. Another opportunity to watch her hit one out of the park, top of the eighth, bases loaded.”

New York Times Book Review - Kathleen Norris

“Such a commonplace book is to be cherished. . . . A document still too rare in literary history, an account of a woman who has lived by words. Ms. Grumbach wittily chronicles the absurdities and ambiguities of the modern American writer's life.”

Los Angeles Times

“Immensely likable . . . there is a rhythm to this journal that is not unlike narrative poetry, a quality to the prose that is both vivid and passionate.”

Publishers Weekly

When novelist and literary critic Grumbach published her memoir Coming into the End Zone in 1991, it was cause for celebration--for her and for readers educated and inspired by her year of reflections on turning 70 and the process of what she here calls ``coming into old age.'' Now a few years older, Grumbach, who still lives on the coast of Maine, uses the same month-by-month format to record another year of musings and considerations. Often sublime, sometimes mundane, rarely boring, these reflections will appeal especially to readers who live in the world of books. Grumbach writes with grace and precision about her anxiety while waiting for reviews of End Zone ; about what books she is moved to take from her shelves and reread; about conversations with colleagues, friends and her daughters; about friendship, love and loss. PW gets its mention, decribed as ``the Bible of the book trade sometimes Job, sometimes Revelations, perhaps Exodus?.'' Norton is reissuing Grumbach's novels, The Ladies and The Magician's Girl , in conjunction with this memoir. Nov.

Library Journal

Organized as a journal divided by months, Grumbach's book begins on September 15, 1991, the day her first memoir, Coming into the End Zone ( LJ 8/91), first appeared in print. The journal covers the next year's further ruminations on old age. Grumbach describes her memories, philosophical musings, reading, work, the people she cares about, and her home in Maine. Though often pessimistic and cynical, she gives a clear, honest picture of her own old age and of how her world has changed for the worse. Her account is instructive for people of all ages. While some of what she says borders on triteness, she says it all so beautifully that one hates to see the book end. Recommended for general collections.-- Judy Mimken, Saginaw Valley State Univ., Mich.

Booknews

The novelist's reflective journal-jottings, begun as she approached her 75th year; a sequel, really, to her Coming into the End Zone, written at the age of 70. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)