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A review by nancyflanagan
The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life by Robert Goolrick
3.0
Glad I read Goolrick's two fictional books--both of which were wonderful--before reading this memoir.
The book is stunning in many ways--a man laying bare his worst secrets and deepest insecurities--in moving, jarring prose. There are scenes that are deftly drawn, recalling time and place with crystalline accuracy. And I liked the non-linear, non-chronological structure, which begins (and this is not a spoiler) with the death of his Goolrick's father.
However. There is a lack of cohesion. The book feels like it was written by multiple authors at times, as Goolrick experiments with stream of consciousness, repetitive motifs, straightforward narrative, Gothic/Southern story-telling and even black humor. You keep wondering: what is he trying to say? What does he want the reader to know?
In the end, I felt manipulated by Goolrick's story, as if he tried a dozen ways to make me feel something, with only some of them successful.
The book is stunning in many ways--a man laying bare his worst secrets and deepest insecurities--in moving, jarring prose. There are scenes that are deftly drawn, recalling time and place with crystalline accuracy. And I liked the non-linear, non-chronological structure, which begins (and this is not a spoiler) with the death of his Goolrick's father.
However. There is a lack of cohesion. The book feels like it was written by multiple authors at times, as Goolrick experiments with stream of consciousness, repetitive motifs, straightforward narrative, Gothic/Southern story-telling and even black humor. You keep wondering: what is he trying to say? What does he want the reader to know?
In the end, I felt manipulated by Goolrick's story, as if he tried a dozen ways to make me feel something, with only some of them successful.