Doris Grumbach

“The Magician’s Girl is most disturbing, and therefore at its best, in its acute awareness of the pains endured unflinchingly by the young.” —The New York Times

“When you put this tale down, you understand that what Grumbach has fashioned is the deep gaze, from childhood to dying, of the eye of fate.” —Cynthia Ozick

“A buoyant memoir . . . The reader doesn’t want this party to be over.” —The New York Times Book Review

“After reading this slim volume, readers will be convinced that Grumbach’s private self is as intelligent and generous as her public persona.” —Publishers Weekly

“This collection of wise ramblings reveals a vibrant and perceptive older woman who has lived the fullest of lives and delights in sharing her surprising and meaningful observations.” —Library Journal

“[The Missing Person is] reminiscent both of Sherwood Anderson and Nathanael West, though [Grumbach’s] melancholic lyricism is very much her own.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The Missing Person is a tellingly achieved fusion of thought and action and the most fully realized evocation of Hollywood themes in a long, long time.” —Los Angeles Herald Examiner

"This is a profoundly optimistic book: a validation of the strength and the tranquility to be found within the confines of the human mind." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A diary of a day that encapsulates the memories, reflections, and yearnings of a lifetime as gracefully as a Fabergé egg captures spring sunlight in its tiny interior." -Kirkus Reviews

"This elegant and thoughtful memoir, written during the author's 70th year, records her reactions and thoughts on growing older and also journeys into particularly vivid memories. It also records her daily existence, with all its joys, fears, and quotidian chores. One of the more remarkable things about the book is that it chronicles a major change in the author's life, that of the move from Washington, D.C., with all its urban intensity, to the quiet coast of Maine." --Jessica Grim, Univ. of California at Berkeley Lib., Library Journal

"Grumbach's latest novel is grimly compelling in its portrayal of four lives filled with stifled desires, major depression, incest, self-sacrifice, and thwarted love. ... With death at an early age presented as a happy alternative to living inauthentically, this is a ruthlessly ugly depiction of interwar America that emphasizes the tragedy of lives lost to tradition and convention. "--Booklist

"A tale told in delicate brushstrokes of a relationship in which two hearts came almost literally to beat as one." --Newsday
 

"Such a commonplace book is to be cherished. . . . A document still too rare in literary history, an account of a woman who has lived by words. Ms. Grumbach wittily chronicles the absurdities and ambiguities of the modern American writer's life." — Kathleen Norris, New York Times Book Review

Immensely likable . . . there is a rhythm to this journal that is not unlike narrative poetry, a quality to the prose that is both vivid and passionate. — Michael Dorris, Los Angeles Times

"Bracingly candid and lyrically written. . . . Deserves to be as highly ranked as any work of spirituality since the writings of Thomas Merton. --Colman McCarthy, The Washington Post Book World

"A candid, personal journal full of blind alleys, stumbles, yearning, and inspiration." --The Boston Globe

"Doris Grumbach's Chamber Music has made a considerable impression on me. . . . It is a haunting story, all the more powerful because of the elegant economy of the writing." — Barbara Pym

"It is as if Willa Cather had decided to tell the whole truth. It is Virginia Woolf without the evasive prettifying. . . . One of those rare novels written for adults who listen." — John Leonard, New York Times