Once you read something you can’t unread it. No matter how hard you want to delete it from your eyes. The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes From a Life by Robert Goolrick was an incredibly disturbing memoir. Loyal readers know I love a good cry at a true story, but in this case I didn’t cry. Instead I gasped in horror and threw the book down in complete disgust. I feel awful for this poor man, but holy crap what a thing to tell me in such detail.
I chose this book because I had read Goolrick’s rather smutty novel A Reliable Wife. I figured a novelist writing a memoir was a good bet, and on the cover Entertainment Weekly claims the book is “morbidly funny.”
Listen here, EW. I don’t care if some stories were amusing, when the bomb was dropped on the reader three-fourths of the way through the story, all mentions of humor are out. Null and void. Goolrick managed to completely shock and disgust a frequent reader of Holocaust autobiographies.
I am not lending this book out, and will likely cover my eyes with my hand if it is ever mentioned in conversation. Including when R.E.M. plays on the radio.
