Customer Reviews

Life In A Day

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I read this book when it first came out. It's a lovely lesson in being aware. Ms. Grumbach's awareness is keen, her ability to connect the dots of her life is a gift. Her life as revealed in the bits she recalls throughout the day is a mirror to the meaning of life: Relationship, inspiration, quotidian moments, and the struggle to grow old well. I enjoyed the book so much I wrote to the author; she wrote back. I've read it over and over since the first time.

This is the fourth Grumbach memoir for me, and, while there were a few moments in Life in a Day that seemed a bit tedious and repetitious, the book is totally redeemed by its frequent flashes of insight and witticisms which made me chuckle or laugh out loud. Doris even questions whether this book is really a memoir, saying it should probably be called a "commonplace book." In her ruminations she worries that she might be repeating herself - a problem common to the aged. And actually she does repeat herself here and there, but so what? We all do, and many of her repetitions bear repeating. (Hmm ... Does that make sense?) "No matter," as Doris frequently says, in transitioning from one digression to the next thought. I have written three volumes of memoirs myself and am currently working on a fourth. My wife is not a wholehearted supporter of my efforts, but I have learned to live with that. So I had to smile when I read that Grumbach's long-time partner, Sybil, is not exactly a happy camper about her memoir-writing either.

"Once when I was halfway through a second memoir, she said that this enterprise rather repelled her. She could not understand parading oneself out there for everyone who reads the book to see. It is a kind of self-promotion, she thought, and somewhat ignoble."

Point taken, Sybil, but I don't think you're taking into account the pleasure Doris's memoirs provide to people like me, several states and a thousand miles away. And the thousands like me who can so easily identify with the life of the mind that Doris's writing represents. And finally I had to laugh at a half-jokingly proposed title for whatever might be Doris's "last" memoir - "How Many Times Do I Have to Tell You?" Although I thought to myself more than once while reading this book, I wonder if anyone ever calls Doris "Grumpy Grumbach" or "Doleful Doris," in the end I was smiling as I closed the book. I could love this old woman. I admire her tremendously. She has definitely got "the right stuff." - Tim Bazzett, author of the Reed City Boy trilogy