Extra Innings: A Memoir

by Doris Grumbach

Book Overview

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393035417
• ISBN13: 9780393035414
• Release Date: November 1993
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 298 Pages
• Weight: 1.24 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.9" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A beautiful memoir about art, aging and a life of letters

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! - Tim Bazzett, author of LOVE, WAR & POLIO and the REED CITY BOY trilogy

A truly heart-felt work

I enjoy this book very much. It is not one that I have read once never to pick up again. I have highlighted may portions of this book as I have found them to be very insightful for my own life as a woman and as a writer. I enjoy her candor and observations. I appreciate her ability to express herself, even during her sadness. It is real. True authenticity seems to be what contemporary women are searching for, and this author has certainly been able to convey that through her words.

Grumbach at her best

This is the second, longest, and most far-reaching of Grumbach's memoirs (I've read them all; this one is a favorite). It delves into Grumbach's past more than the others, detailing various memories of childhood and youth, thereby giving a vivid sense of the rich and unusual life she has led. Reflections on the aftermath of her first memoir (Coming Into the End Zone) are particularly interesting, as are her reflections on the similarities between fiction and autobiography. It's a helpful link for Grumbach fans between the long and often grumpy memoir that came before it and the slim, much more peaceful memoirs that followed it. This may be testimony to the unforeseen benefits that a life change can bring -- at the end of the last memoir Grumbach unexpectedly relocated from D.C. to rural Maine. Very inspiring.