The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life |  | Author: Robert Goolrick
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
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Seller: atlanta-book-company
Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 42,661
Media: Paperback
Pages: 227
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.7
ISBN: 1565126025
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.92092
EAN: 9781565126022
ASIN: 1565126025
Publication Date: April 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In the Goolrick home there was a law: Never talk about the family in the outside world, never reveal the slightest crack in the facade. To all appearances, they lived an almost idyllic life. Two respected, charming parents everyone loved. Three bright, smiling children. A lovely home on a quiet street nestled in a small college town. But behind the facade this family had created lurked secrets so dark, so painful for one little boy, that his life would never be the same.
With devastating honesty and razor-sharp wit, Goolrick looks back at this seemingly serene time and at the parents who gave him life and then robbed him of it, who created his world and then destroyed it.
Book Description
In the tradition of Mary Karr's The Liars' Club and Rick Bragg's All Over but the Shoutin', Robert Goolrick has crafted a classic memoir of childhood and the secrets hidden in a heart that can't forget. In the Goolrick home there was a law: Never talk about the family in the outside world, never reveal the slightest crack in the facade. In The End of the World as We Know It, the author takes us back to the seemingly idyllic world his father and mother created in their home in a small Southern college town, a world of gentle men and lovely ladies and cocktails and party dresses—a world being eroded by a family history of alcoholism. As Goolrick grew to be a man, his childhood held memories that would not let go, memories that held a secret that followed him wherever he went, defining and directing his days. Over time, the secret grew so big it threatened to rip the world apart. And then it did.
With devastating honesty and razor-sharp wit, he looks back with love, and with anger, at the parents who both created his world and destroyed it. As Lee Smith (author of On Agate Hill) observed, "Alcohol may be the real villain in this pain-permeated, exquisitely written memoir of a Virginia childhood—but it is also filled with absolutely dead-on social commentary of this very particular time and place. A brave, haunting, riveting book."
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
 My hometown. March 28, 2007
Lisa M. Dunlap (Lexington, VA USA)
40 out of 43 found this review helpful
I finished my father's copy of Mr. Goolrick's book with in a few hours of picking it up. It is, quite simply, engrossing. Mr. Goolrick's story is sometimes incredibly difficult to read due to it's emotional intensity and rawness. He does not censor, dilute, or gloss over any of the emotions or events of his life.
For me, one of the more interesting aspects of this book is that most of it is set in my hometown. I recognized a few of the people on these pages (including Mrs. Lachman's crazy son who is still crazy and terrified me as a child. Still does, to be honest. A couple of months ago, he almost blew up his house.).
"The End of the World as We Know It" is a brutally honest, brave book. If you have ties to Lexington, have fun playing spot the town eccentrics. Lord knows, we have our fair share.
Beautifully written, moving memoir March 27, 2007
R.G. Masons (NYC)
27 out of 29 found this review helpful
This is a wonderfully constructed story of a harrowing Southern childhood. Mr. Goolrick builds his story sentence by elegant sentence, and even in the face of the most horrible childhood events manages remarkable compassion toward his parents and the way they've ruined his life. The book is filled with warmth and humor as well, and many keen-eyed observations of a well-bred American family gone wildy wrong. Moving and inspiring, you'll think about this book after you turn the last page.
A beautiful, if painful, book. April 25, 2007
D. Carr (Boston, MA)
19 out of 20 found this review helpful
I was drawn to this book because it seemed to be the most recent addition to the "dysfunctional family" genre which often captivates me. However, this memoir transcends this genre in that it is not written for shock value or the easy laugh, but appears to be a genuine attempt to evoke an era in the south, and to come to terms with a life that should have been glorious, but was horrific. Robert Goolrick's parents are perhaps the guiltiest, most wrong-headed, unforgiveable couple that have graced the pages of literature. Their actions and their decision about how to deal with their sensitive, gifted child wrought such power and devastation. Here, Robert Goolrick articulates in a way that is both gripping and poetic, how one human being has navigated a difficult and confusing life and continues to live it, I would say, heroically. It is fortunate for the reader that although his parents have shredded his psyche they were unable to obliterate his honesty or his talent.
This book reminds me of Susan Minot's wonderful fictional account of her childhood, Monkeys.
Shattering - I KNEW these people February 11, 2010
Harvey L. Handley (Arlington, VA)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
A review in the form of a mini-memoir: Killing time in an airport newsstand recently, I saw a novel "by Robert Goolrick." Not a common name; I looked for a picture and said, "Yes, that's Robbie Goolrick all right." When I got home, I looked on Amazon and read about this book. I bought it the next day, but it was six weeks before I could bring myself to open it.
As a college senior in Lexington I had more to do than most with the "townies," because theater was what I did, and my all-male school relied on locals to play the women's parts. Thus I got to know the three brilliant Goolrick kids: Chester B. Jr., always called just "B"; Robbie who wrote this book; and their preternaturally-mature-for-her-age little sister Lindlay. I don't think I was in their home, and met their parents, more than once; but for a middle-class California kid bowled over by the quirky sophistication of the Southern gentry, once was enough.
And then, 40 years later, to read this book and find out what was behind this glittering surface . . . I can't imagine anyone reading this book and not being shaken to the core, but I can't find the words for its impact on me.
He forgives his hateful parents. Maybe he forgives himself. April 5, 2007
Jesse Kornbluth (New York)
23 out of 28 found this review helpful
There are all kinds of beatings. Among the "better" classes, belts and fists are unthinkable. The weapon of choice is generally words, but it can veer into sexual abuse. And the damage is generally to a child's self-esteem and sense of safety.
The worst thing about these assaults? The parents "know better." Indeed, if they heard about a neighbor's child being verbally or sexually abused, they'd be shocked. Who knows? They might even intervene.
So why are these parents blind to their own cruelty?
They're drunk.
"My father died because he drank too much." That's the first sentence of Robert Goolrick's memoir. The second? "Six years before, my mother had died because she drank too much." The third? "I drank too much."
If you drink, if you are the child of a drunk or have drunks among your family and friends, this is not shocking news to you --- alcohol is a kind of misery that seems to love company.
But even if drunks are your lot, I doubt you know the kind of depravity that Goolrick describes here. "My mother and father presented a perfect picture to the world, a happy, witty, charming young couple who were madly in love, and did nothing but have fun," he writes. And so it was. His father was Virginia gentry, a college history professor. His mother was a beauty, well read, a lady; she wore gloves and powder. At the Goolricks' cocktail parties, they served cheese straws and cucumber sandwiches, and the guests laughed heartily at their stories.
And his father ended up with rats cavorting on the Persian carpets.
"Somebody once said to me that all families were either about the parents or about the children," Goolrick notes. "Ours was about their parents." And yet, through the first half of this memoir, the dominant note is forgiveness. Alone of the three Goolrick children, Robert got nothing from his parents. He won fellowships to pay his way through school, where he compiled a brilliant record; they didn't seem to notice. He paid for their house; they never thanked him.
Why does Goolrick forgive these wretched, thoughtless, insufferable people?
Because, when he was four years old, something happened.
I'm not going to say what it was --- Goolrick artfully structures this taut (213 pages), unsettlingly elegant book so you're well into the home stretch before he reveals the awful deed --- but its effect is devastating. That is, it's the defining event of Goolrick's life. It leads to drugs and cutting and suicide attempts and desperate sex --- all the stations of the self-loathing cross.
The title of this book is ironic. In the song, the lyrics go: "It's the end of the world as we know it/And I feel fine." But at no point in these pages --- not even at the end --- does Robert Goolrick feel fine. For whatever reason, he is unable to get past the damage his parents inflicted --- and then ignored. Given that, the writing of this book is a Herculean achievement.
So why push this sad, ugly story on you?
Because you are a drunk, and maybe my words will get you to read this book, and this book will stop you cold and make you realize not only what you are doing to yourself but the spectacular damage you are committing on your loved ones --- especially your kids.
Because you have a drunk in your family or social circle, and you've been pretending it's not really so great a problem, because God forbid you should do something uncomfortable and intervene --- well, maybe this book will be your wake-up call.
Or because you are the child of a drunk and you have been victimized in ways you can barely admit to yourself, much less share with others. Because you need help and won't get it because, in the twisted logic of these things, you're convinced that what happened to you is your fault, and deserved. Because, in the end, you feel so alone it's a victory every time you get through the day.
Robert Goolrick's among the walking wounded. But against all odds, he's walking. In his garbage dump of a life, that's a flower. And for others who see only "a veil of human misery over everything," that should be inspiring.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 40
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