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Extra Innings: A Memoir
Extra Innings continues the intense, sometimes funny, sometimes tart, and sometimes very moving account of a closely examined life begun by Doris Grumbach in her widely praised day book Coming into the End Zone. That earlier book chronicles the author's seventy-first year, a time of both struggle against and acceptance of the encroachments of old age.
Extra Innings begins two years later, on the publication date of its predecessor, its author exposed to all the exquisitely mingled hopes and fears of sending a book into the world. In this case, though, each review offered Doris Grumbach not only an opinion of her book, but something of a mirror in which she could see herself as the world sees her - or her self-portrait. It proves a somewhat disorienting route to self-knowledge.
And so begins another eventful year - crowded with the literary pleasures (and pains) of a life spent reading and writing; the natural beauties and social particulars of life in coastal Maine; the mingled joys and affronts of travel to New York, Washington, Mexico; and, always, the looming presence of illness and mortality, the author's own and her daughter's as well.
Extra Innings is, finally, a book about the successful search for home, the end of a journey to the Cove in Sargentville, Maine, where the serene landscape to be viewed from Grumbach's study comes to match the inward landscape of memory and well-earned peace.
Extra Innings begins two years later, on the publication date of its predecessor, its author exposed to all the exquisitely mingled hopes and fears of sending a book into the world. In this case, though, each review offered Doris Grumbach not only an opinion of her book, but something of a mirror in which she could see herself as the world sees her - or her self-portrait. It proves a somewhat disorienting route to self-knowledge.
And so begins another eventful year - crowded with the literary pleasures (and pains) of a life spent reading and writing; the natural beauties and social particulars of life in coastal Maine; the mingled joys and affronts of travel to New York, Washington, Mexico; and, always, the looming presence of illness and mortality, the author's own and her daughter's as well.
Extra Innings is, finally, a book about the successful search for home, the end of a journey to the Cove in Sargentville, Maine, where the serene landscape to be viewed from Grumbach's study comes to match the inward landscape of memory and well-earned peace.
- GenresMemoirNonfiction
298 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1993
10 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Doris Grumbach
31 books25 followersDoris Grumbach is an American novelist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. She taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, and was literary editor of the The New Republic for several years. Since 1985, she has had a bookstore, Wayward Books, in Sargentville, Maine, that she operates with her partner, Sybil Pike.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 5, 2015
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:
• At Eighty-Two by May Sarton
• The Presence of Absence by Doris Grumbach
• Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
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:
• At Eighty-Two by May Sarton
• The Presence of Absence by Doris Grumbach
• Somewhere Towards the End by Diana Athill
March 2, 2015
Life has been strangely hectic lately and I've been feeling quite scattered. Obviously, as I finished this book two weeks ago (I think?), but am only now writing a review. But Extra Innings turned out to be a fortuitous choice of book to read during this time.
I've read and enjoyed several of Doris Grumbach's novels and her journal Fifty Days Of Solitude, but for some reason I didn't realize she had written many other journals. In fact, a lot of this book had to do with the then-recent publication of her journal Coming into the End Zone, which dealt with her dislike of aging. Many instances in Extra Innings she receives communication from fellow aging persons telling her she is wrong to feel the way she does about aging. I found this rather amusing, as I believe she did too. Doris Grumbach admits she is often accused of being cranky, but either this book wasn't as cranky as her others or I recognized a kindred cranky spirit in her and wasn't bothered in the least.
I find her writing so endearing and wise. A feeling similar to that I got when reading May Sarton's journals, but Doris Grumbach's writing doesn't inspire the same (unhappy?) emotional restlessness that I remember getting from Sarton's writings.
As I mentioned before, life has been busy (and universally troubling) lately, but opening this book to read was instantly calming. It's not that Doris writes of a world that is free of woe and struggles, but somehow her daily goings-on, her perspective, her musings on life and its absurdities is somehow incredibly soothing to me.
I've read and enjoyed several of Doris Grumbach's novels and her journal Fifty Days Of Solitude, but for some reason I didn't realize she had written many other journals. In fact, a lot of this book had to do with the then-recent publication of her journal Coming into the End Zone, which dealt with her dislike of aging. Many instances in Extra Innings she receives communication from fellow aging persons telling her she is wrong to feel the way she does about aging. I found this rather amusing, as I believe she did too. Doris Grumbach admits she is often accused of being cranky, but either this book wasn't as cranky as her others or I recognized a kindred cranky spirit in her and wasn't bothered in the least.
I find her writing so endearing and wise. A feeling similar to that I got when reading May Sarton's journals, but Doris Grumbach's writing doesn't inspire the same (unhappy?) emotional restlessness that I remember getting from Sarton's writings.
As I mentioned before, life has been busy (and universally troubling) lately, but opening this book to read was instantly calming. It's not that Doris writes of a world that is free of woe and struggles, but somehow her daily goings-on, her perspective, her musings on life and its absurdities is somehow incredibly soothing to me.
May 20, 2021
A wonderful, personal look inside the life of Doris Grumbach in 1992, just after the publication of her previous book "End Zone" was released. Many of her reviewers and readers accused her of being "dark" and "cranky" due to her to response to aging, however, I found it to be honest and refreshing, a decision to acknowledge the elephant in the room, rather than ignore it or paint it pretty colors. I spent longer reading it than I'd thought I would because, as always, Grumbach loves language and words, and I found myself stopping often to look them up. But as journals go, this is how they should be, with quotes that mean something at the moment, stories told by friends, conversations overheard in bookstores and restaurants, feelings about a view through the window and the goings on in the world.
Another reviewer mentioned lots of name dropping, but how else to refer to dinner guests and friends, other authors, mostly, except by name. I loved her description of the line around the block for Alice Walker's book signing, and other moments when author's accepted awards or made pointed remarks during speeches. I loved too her descriptions of her relationship with Sybil, her partner, such as the evening they both avoided making dinner or going into the kitchen, neither of them wanting to cook, and then both of them showing up at the table much later with cereal and leftovers, too tired to discuss how they'd been trying to avoid the cooking chore.
Reading this journal was a great break from reading fiction, a sort of "behind the scenes" look at the struggles and triumphs of authors as they're working their ways into their fiction. Thoroughly enjoyable!
Another reviewer mentioned lots of name dropping, but how else to refer to dinner guests and friends, other authors, mostly, except by name. I loved her description of the line around the block for Alice Walker's book signing, and other moments when author's accepted awards or made pointed remarks during speeches. I loved too her descriptions of her relationship with Sybil, her partner, such as the evening they both avoided making dinner or going into the kitchen, neither of them wanting to cook, and then both of them showing up at the table much later with cereal and leftovers, too tired to discuss how they'd been trying to avoid the cooking chore.
Reading this journal was a great break from reading fiction, a sort of "behind the scenes" look at the struggles and triumphs of authors as they're working their ways into their fiction. Thoroughly enjoyable!
March 4, 2023
I discovered writer Doris Grumbach in May Sarton's journals - they were friends. And I love reading journals, diaries and memoirs. Nothing much really happens in this book, the writer was in her early seventies and wants a quiet life, and perhaps that is why there is a lovely timelessness to it and a gentleness too. She talks about being seen as cranky but doesn't try to make herself over for anyone else. She is who she is. I was greedy for photographs of the house in Maine and Sybil, her partner, and Sybil's bookshop. I am sure that DG would have quaked had she known how many more years she had to go before dying at the age of 104 in 2022. I don't know what it is but I bask in the quiet lives, the small details of a writer's day. I want to know what they see when they look out their window. I want to know the books they are reading and even the food they are eating.
July 7, 2017
Extra Innings: A Memoir
Doris Grumbach wrote this book as a response of sorts to feedback she received on her previous book "Coming into the End Zone." Many people took offense at her portrayal of old age as a horrible thing with no redeeming features. Some of the letters that she received described her as grumpy, irritable, depressed perhaps in need of medication.
In this book, she does try to present a more positive view on aging and even the eventuality of death. She seems more at home at the end of the book.
Grumbach in addition to being an author has been a book reviewer, and educator. I enjoy her writing style.
Doris Grumbach wrote this book as a response of sorts to feedback she received on her previous book "Coming into the End Zone." Many people took offense at her portrayal of old age as a horrible thing with no redeeming features. Some of the letters that she received described her as grumpy, irritable, depressed perhaps in need of medication.
In this book, she does try to present a more positive view on aging and even the eventuality of death. She seems more at home at the end of the book.
Grumbach in addition to being an author has been a book reviewer, and educator. I enjoy her writing style.
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July 1, 2025"Perhaps, in the process of writing, I may come upon some answers to the insistent questions of old age. Or perhaps I will only succeed in recording, month by month, the minor thoughts and activities in the life of an aging woman. It may be that a commonplace record of insignificant exterior doings and interior musings are my only possible response to the great philosophical questions. What is it that drives us to examine matters of cosmic significance - birth, faith, suffering, injustice, dying, and death - but the intrusion into our daily lives of niggling irritations and petty trifles."
April 8, 2023
Wisdom and insight about living.
March 3, 2012
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!
August 17, 2008
Folks posted that she was "grumpy" etc. in the previous memoir (End Zone), but I found that more so in this one than the other. Moreover, she does an awful lot of literary namedropping, although in her case it's more just the way her life has run than to impress readers; the names sometimes meant little or nothing to me though, so I wondered what I'd missed. I wouldn't say this book stands alone - read Coming into the End Zone first for background, as well as to get a feel for Grumbach's style. I am looking forward to reading her shorter follow-up works.
May 27, 2010
This stunning record of the author's 75th year was beautiful to read. Lovely writing. She is friends with May Sarton and talks about visiting her in the book -- their writing is similar in vein as they lived on the same rugged Maine coast.
August 6, 2010
I identify with Ms. Grumbach as she grumbles about getting older. I only wish I was as smart and as interesting as she is about books. Love all her introspective books, they make me think!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews