Doris Grumbach: 14 books

Three memoirs about isolation, aging, and death from an author whose “private self is as intelligent and generous as her public persona” (Publishers Weekly). Fifty Days of Solitude: Faced with a rare opportunity to experiment with true solitude, Doris Grumbach decided to live in her coastal...

A New York Times Notable Book: A moving glimpse of a life shrewdly examined Extra Innings follows a year in the life of Doris Grumbach, beginning with the release of her previous memoir and journal, Coming into the End Zone, and revealing that the devoted essayist, novelist, and critic possesses...

A New York Times Notable Book: To truly understand herself, Doris Grumbach embraces solitude With a busy career as a novelist, essayist, reviewer, and bookstore owner, Doris Grumbach has little opportunity to be alone. However, after seventy-five years on the planet, she finally has her chance:...

A literary master looks ahead to her eighties As her eightieth birthday approaches, Doris Grumbach does not feel melancholy or saddened by the upcoming event, despite the loss of friends such as Kay Boyle and Dorothy Day—instead she takes it as an opportunity both to look backward and to...

The story of an ecstatic spiritual moment—and the search to experience it again When she was twenty-seven years old, writer Doris Grumbach had an epiphany. It was as if God were right there beside her, and she had a “feeling of peace so intense that it seemed to expand into ineffable joy.”...

**Doris Grumbach’s chilling look at the ways childhood experiences create transformative echoes that last throughout adulthood ** “I want to lead you all into the ocean to see if you will drown.” During the summer of 1929 four children come together and change the course of their...

Two compelling works of fiction from a feminist literary icon hailed as “Virginia Woolf without the evasive prettifying” (The New York Times). Chamber Music: Caroline Maclaren, the widow of a prominent composer, is finally going to tell her own life story. Taking pen to paper, she relives...

A New York Times Notable Book: One woman’s search for the value of a long life With the advent of her seventieth birthday, many changes have beset Doris Grumbach: the rapidly accelerating speed of the world around her, the premature deaths of her younger friends, her own increasing infirmities,...

A look into the daily life of one of America’s great memoirists At seventy-seven Doris Grumbach is as sharp as ever, and in Life in a Day she examines the experiences of her later years, from the dreaded writer’s block to the many hours she has spent reading to the effects of an increasingly...

A tender and imaginative retelling of the adventures of two of history’s most compelling women In 1778 Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby left County Kilkenny for Wales to live together as a married couple. Both well born, highly educated Irish women, the Ladies of Llangollen, as they came...

The moving portrait of a woman stranded in her lonely fame Franny Fuller, blond, buxom, and beguiling, is the sort of woman who harnesses a power that can enthrall a nation. The legendary movie star has captured the imaginations of audiences, men, and columnist Mary Maguire, who is writing...

United by chance during their formative years at Barnard College, three women come of age in New York Minna Grant, Maud Noon, and Liz Becker are assigned as roommates during their freshman year at Barnard. The daughter of Communist parents, Liz makes a name for herself as a photographer. Minna,...

In her later years, a woman reflects on her marriage, her stifled passions, and her life At age ninety, Caroline Maclaren, widow of the prominent composer Robert Maclaren, finally decides to tell her own story. “Perhaps the time was not right to do it before,” she remarks. But now she takes...

Three brilliant works of fiction from a feminist and lesbian literary icon who was “acutely sensitive to the quiet hum of everyday living” (Ms.). The Missing Person: Legendary movie star Franny Fuller captured the imaginations of audiences, men, and her biographer, Mary Maguire. But what...