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THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
By: Robert Goolrick
Scenes from a Life
Algonquin Books
March 2007
On Sale: March 23, 2007
224 pages
ISBN: 1565124812
EAN: 9781565124813
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Memoir
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 dressesโa 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 childhoodโbut it is also filled with absolutely dead-on social commentary of this very particular time and place. A brave, haunting, riveting book."
 Media BuzzDiane Rehm Show - NPR - March 29, 2007
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