This is only the second Grumbach book I've read, but it certainly won't be the last. I was captivated by another of her memoirs, COMING INTO THE END ZONE, so much so that I couldn't wait to read the next, this book. I was not disappointed. If you are a reader, a person who cherishes good writing, then you will want to linger over this thoughtful meditation on a long life spent among books, writers and other interesting people. I was in fact torn, as I read this book. I wanted to linger over the beauty of the language, but at the same time I couldn't wait to see what happened, or rather what she would write about, next. Because not a whole lot "happens" in this book, as far as action is concerned. It's all about reading, reflecting and trying to make sense out of this "life thing" we all so cavalierly take for granted for so many years. Doris Grumbach is musing about turning 75 in this book. In END ZONE she meditated on turning 70. I now know there is another book about turning 80, and I hope it goes on and on. I remember reading some years back another similar and equally entertaing and profound kind of book by John Jerome, ON TURNING SIXTY-FIVE. Sadly, John Jerome is no longer with us. But Grumbach is, thank GOD! Her musings on so many books and authors had me nearly in despair that I will never have time to read all of these people, some well-known, some nearly forgotten. But she writes of them - and of their books - as if they were old friends. Indeed, many of the people mentioned were friends of Grumbach. And since she writes openly about many of them succumbing to AIDS (in both memoirs), that dread disease often seems almost a character in her books. Grumbach, who has four adult daughters from an early marriage, has a long-time woman partner now. When I Google Grumbach, I often find on-line entries about "lesbian lit" or "lesbian relationships." Horsecrap! Doris Grumbach's books are about no such thing. They are simply - and eloquently - about living, about art, about love. She makes you want to read and read, and then read some more. Something my wife will not be happy to hear, since she already thinks I spend way too much time with my nose in a book. But after reading these two Grumbach books, I have lists of more authors I need to try - Anatole Broyard, (more) Willa Cather, Isabel Bolton and others. But mostly now I want to read more of Doris Grumbach. Oh, and one more thing. This is one of the first memoirs I've ever read in which an author writes about letters she's gotten from her readers. She not only muses about their comments, but also tells us "how she replied"! Need I say I have written to her. If she writes back, I'll add a postscript here one day. But hey, she is 90 years old. I will understand that her time is important now and things need to be prioritized. Her writing MUST come first. Write on, Doris, PLEASE!
Like May Sarton, who was her acquaintance in Maine, Grumbach wrote fiction as well as diaries about the writing life, illness and age. She opens this book by reflecting on the middling response to her previous memoir, Coming into the End Zone (1991) – as well as the irony that it was mistaken by some to be about sports. Many felt End Zone was overly grouchy; indeed, she admits, “I fear it will establish me only as a somewhat cranky elderly person airing her fears, loves, regrets, dislikes, wan hopes, and unaccountable memories.” This second memoir was published when Grumbach was approaching her mid-70s. With her partner, Sybil Pike (Grumbach left her husband after 30 years of marriage and four daughters), she made the final move from Washington, D.C., where they’d always maintained an apartment, to live in Maine full-time. I grew up in suburban D.C., so I was particularly interested to see her comparing the two places’ advantages and disadvantages. D.C. had the cultural life – she belonged to Phi Beta Kappa and served on a book prize panel; they had lots of friends and favorite restaurants; she could read the New York Times on the day of issue – but also crime and cutthroat politics (these were the days of Marion Barry).Some other elements: concerns about her daughter Jane’s health after the recurrence of a benign brain tumor, lots of friends with AIDS, computer technology taking over, reading Dickens for the additions to her vocabulary, book buying and selling (she and Sybil ran stores in D.C. and Maine), and making trips to Willa Cather’s summer home in Canada. (Grumbach once considered writing a biography of Cather, but it seems Hermione Lee beat her to it; she did, however, write a biography of Mary McCarthy.)My single favorite anecdote was from when Grumbach worked for Mademoiselle in New York City as a young woman. She took Gipsy Rose Lee out to lunch and was excruciatingly aware of the woman’s inappropriately loud comments about her experiences of burlesque.Grumbach shares some interests and themes with May Sarton: lesbianism, memoir-writing, illness, old age and depression. Indeed, I requested this book on NetGalley based on her association with Sarton. (I later learned that Grumbach taught English at New York’s College of Saint Rose at the same time my mother was a student there; she or her brother may have had Grumbach as a professor.) I must thank Open Road Media for reviving Grumbach’s work as they did previously for Sarton.To think, Grumbach was writing about old age and its discontents at age 70, but is still alive at 97!Related reading:•t At Eighty-Two by May Sarton•t The Presence of Absence by Doris Grumbach•t Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
