A few years before, a noble war had been won, and now life had returned to normal. It was the 1950s, a time of calm, a time when all things were new and everything seemed possible. A few years out, I still feel a little stunned. I walked around feeling stunned two, maybe three, weeks after I finished reading this book. It’s not only possible, but it can be stunning. What I learned from this book (aside from the fact that there are books so amazingly written I can’t even hope to follow their model) is that it is possible to withhold something important until way way way into a book. But Goolrick does so to re-enact how he, as a little boy, was assaulted with betrayal and brutality. Yes, I mean that the reader is assaulted. Then he slams the reader with betrayal and brutality. But the way Goolrick balances these things, you don’t realize what is coming. It also presents two viewpoints of the same characters–a sophisticated intellectual family–and the bottom-of-the-barrel people that they became. Goolrick’s memoir is lyrical and beautiful and tantalizing and glittering. It’s hard for me to write about this book. When you end up feeling devastated for the little boy who was Robert Goolrick you will feel like it is THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, the title of his coming-of-age memoir. A brave, haunting, riveting book." … ( more) As author Lee Smith, who knew this world and this family, observed, "Alcohol may be the real villain in this pain-permeated, exquisitely written memoir of childhood-but it is also filled with absolutely dead-on social commentary of this very particular time and place. Beautifully written, often humorous, sometimes sweet, ultimately shocking, this is a son's story of looking back with both love and anger at the parents who gave him life and then robbed him of it, who created his world and then destroyed it. It is through the eyes of that boy-a grown man now, revisiting that time-that we see this seemingly serene world and watch as it slowly comes completely and irrevocably undone. But behind the facade this family had created lurked secrets so dark, so painful for this one little boy, that his life would never be the same. Lineage, tradition, making the right impression-these were matters of great importance, especially to the mother. To all appearances, their life seemed ideal. They gave parties, hosted picnics, went to church-just like their neighbors. They lived on a sunny street in a small college town nestled neatly in a leafy valley. They were parents to three bright, smiling children: two boys and a girl. The father was a respected professor, the mother a witty and elegant lady, someone everyone loved. For one little boy, however, life had become anything but "normal." To all appearances, he and his family lived an almost idyllic life.
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