Doris Grumbach

American writer

Doris M. Grumbach (née Isaac; July 12, 1918 – November 4, 2022) is an American novelist, memoirist, biographer, literary critic, and essayist. In 1979, Grumbach published the novel Chamber Music, which was critically well received and helped establish her reputation as a novelist. In six years, three more books followed: The Missing Person (1981), The Ladies (1984), and The Magician's Girl (1987).

Doris Grumbach
BornDoris M. Isaac
(1918-07-12)July 12, 1918
Manhattan, New York, U.S.
DiedNovember 4, 2022(2022-11-04) (aged 104)
Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation
Alma materWashington Square College of New York University
Cornell
Spouse
Leonard Grumbach
(m. 1941; div. 1972)
PartnerSybil Pike (1972–2021; her death)[1]
Children4

Grumbach taught at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and American University in Washington, DC, and was literary editor of The New Republic for several years.[2] For two decades, she and her partner, Sybil Pike, managed a bookstore, Wayward Books, in Sargentville, Maine, until 2009 when they moved to a retirement home in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Grumbach celebrated her 100th birthday in 2018,[3][4] and died in Kennett Square on November 4, 2022, at the age of 104.[5]

Novels change

  • The Spoil of the Flowers (1962)
  • The Short Throat, The Tender Mouth (1964)
  • Chamber Music (1979)
  • The Missing Person (1981)
  • The Ladies (1984)
  • The Magician’s Girl (1987)
  • The Book of Knowledge (1995)

References change

  1. ChesterCounty: Obituaries for March 29
  2. Grumbach, Doris (1991), Coming into the End Zone, A Memoir, New York: W W Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-03009-9
  3. "A Whole Day Nearer Now". The American Scholar. 2014-03-11. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
  4. "The Remains of My Days". The American Scholar. 2016-02-29. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
  5. McFadden, Robert D. "Doris Grumbach, Author Who Explored Women's Plight, Dies at 104". The New York Times. Retrieved November 5, 2022.