The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Goolrick
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $1.92
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Avg. Customer Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 306791
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 227
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.9
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: Read 22 more reviews...
 Shattering and honest October 5, 2008
This is one of the most shatteringly honest memoirs I've ever read. The author tears your heart out with every word. I read it in one evening.
raw and heavy August 4, 2008
I read while I work out at the Y. While reading The End, I realized my work outs were getting longer and longer because I couldn't put down this book. Sometimes I'd be grinning like a fool, and at other times, I would have tears running down my face. You'll want to write Goolrick a letter. You'll want to call an old friend who had a rough childhood.
 How not to raise a child May 19, 2008
There is no doubt that the author is a creative and lyrical writer, but the emotions conveyed herein are so much more compelling and vivid because they are real. It is a must read for any parent who has anxiety about their own self-doubt in raising children. The book evokes the mixed raw emotions of a child who wants to love and be loved by his parents (and others), but is incapable of emulating feelings that have never been received. At times, the run-on-sentence rush of scattered thought can be spellbinding and alternately monotonous, but the story is a page turner despite the raw thought to paper style. Although I found the book heartbreaking, I also found the self-loathing horrifying at times. This is a quick read.
I was amazed March 25, 2008
at Mr. Goolrick's ability to express desperate feelings I would have thought impossible to describe...
at the way his family was ready to blame him and never ever mentioned what happened to him...
at the sick behavior of his father...
at the amount of medication the author is (was?) taking...
I sincerely hope that writing this excellent memoir was a healing experience.
relegated to the "recovery" shelf, and that's too bad February 10, 2008
The writing in this book deserves the widest audience possible; the subject matter is painful, difficult, but the author's skill with the language is as redemptive as the story itself.
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