Doris Grumbach wrote novels, essays, and literary criticism in the second half of the 20th century that explored how women were trapped within repressive families and disintegrating marriages. Grumbach also wrote about lesbian characters and themes in a way that was unusual at the time in mainstream literature. She died on November 4, 2022, at the age of 104 in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
Prolific
Grumbach was as prolific as she was versatile. She wrote seven novels and six memoirs, and a biography of the writer Mary McCarthy, as well as book reviews and literary criticism for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The American Scholar, and other publications.
She was known for three books: Chamber Music (1979), a novel about an aging widow who falls in love with a woman after learning that her husband is gay; The Ladies (1984), about two 18th-century women who escape repressive Irish families and become reclusive lovers in Wales; and The Magician’s Girl (1987), about three Barnard College roommates and their troubled lives. In1995, she wrote The Book of Knowledge.
Memoirs
Some critics said Grumbach ’s portraits of lesbian and gay subjects were unrealistic, even limited in scope. Yet others found them lifelike and heralded her for unflinching portrayals of women who were caught in marriage to an intolerant social convention, or who had families unwilling to accept love with another woman.
Grumbach also wrote multiple memoirs: Coming Into the End Zone (1991), Extra Innings (1993), Fifty Days of Solitude (1994), Life in a Day (1996), The Presence of Absence: On Prayers and an Epiphany (1998) and The Pleasure of Their Company (2000). In 2005, she and her partner, Sybil Pike moved to Kendal-Crosslands.
