Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life
    The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life
    The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life
    Audiobook6 hours

    The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life

    Written by Robert Goolrick

    Narrated by Peter Berkrot

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    It was the 1950s, a time of calm, a time when all things were new and everything seemed possible. A few years before, a noble war had been won, and now life had returned to normal. For one little boy, however, life had become anything but "normal." To all appearances, he and his family lived an almost idyllic life. The father was a respected professor, the mother a witty and elegant lady, someone everyone loved. They were parents to three bright, smiling children: two boys and a girl. They lived on a sunny street in a small college town nestled neatly in a leafy valley. They gave parties, hosted picnics, went to church-just like their neighbors. To all appearances, their life seemed ideal. But it was, in fact, all appearances. Lineage, tradition, making the right impression-these were matters of great importance, especially to the mother. 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. 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.

    Contains mature themes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateJun 26, 2018
    ISBN9781684413812
    The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life
    Author

    Robert Goolrick

    Robert Goolrick was the author of the bestselling novels A Reliable Wife, Heading Out to Wonderful, The Fall of Princes, The Dying of the Light and the acclaimed memoir The End of the World as We Know It.

    More audiobooks from Robert Goolrick

    Related to The End of the World as We Know It

    Related audiobooks

    Personal Memoirs For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Writing Political Poetry In Difficult Times: There’s A Reason Fascist Regimes Come For The Artists | Maxine Beneba Clarke

      Nov 8, 2021

      Some authors write for escape. I wrote poetry during the pandemic to process, to meditate on the world that was, to try and make some sense of things as a writer, and hopefully to offer some peace to at least one reader, somewhere, somehow. When Covi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Murder Of James Bulger 30 Years On

      Feb 7, 2023

      This week marks 30 years since two-year-old James Bulger was abducted and murdered by two 10-year-old boys, Jon Venables and Robert Thompson. James would be in his 30s now. Would he be married? A father? With a career? All that was snatched away from

      4 min read

    • Article

      Jay Baruchel

      Oct 26, 2019

      Jay Baruchel
      3 min read

    • Article

      Havenfall

      Feb 26, 2020

      RELEASED 3 MARCH 304 pages | Paperback/ebook Author Sara Holland Publisher Bloomsbury Adolescence is hard enough at the best of times, but throw in a murdered brother, a mother on death row and a high school full of bullies that really don’t apprecia

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Lighter Side of Dan Chaon

      Apr 11, 2022

      I had a dystopian idea in the beginning, and in the end the dystopia caught up with me. The post The Lighter Side of Dan Chaon appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Steph Opitz

      Dec 17, 2018

      I put down a lot of books that didn’t do it for me, and shuffled and reshuffled my to-be-read pile to my heart’s content. It’s been liberating. The post A Year in Reading: Steph Opitz appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Clarence Page: The Age-old Trick Of ‘Passing’: Fiction Writer The Latest To Be Disgraced By Lies About Heritage

      Mar 20, 2023

      I have never known a man who faked his own death, but I have known a man who faked his own life, then sadly failed to live long enough for us to talk about it. I’m talking about the late Hache Carrillo, a rising, award-winning literary talent whose r

      3 min read

    • Article

      Grief Is Another Word For Love

      Jun 21, 2021

      I am trapped in Australia. The borders are shut, which has worked well for keeping COVID-19 out, but it has also kept me in. Over the last fifteen months in sunny Perth, where I live, there have only been two cases of COVID-19 in the community. We ha

      8 min read

    • Article

      Howl Palace

      Sep 15, 2019

      Last week, I finally had to put Howl Palace up for sale. Years of poor financial planning had led to this decision, and I tried to take some comfort in my agent’s belief in a buyer who might show up with an all-cash offer. My agent is a highly organi

      25 min read

    • Article

      It’s Not the Holocaust

      Jun 22, 2018

      It’s Not the Holocaust
      3 min read

    • Article

      It’s A Family Affair

      Jun 1, 2021

      It’s A Family Affair
      4 min read

    • Article

      The 10 Best Podcasts

      Nov 26, 2018

      1 SERIAL Serial became a runaway hit in its first season—then hit a lull in its second. But the true-crime podcast’s third season is its best. Instead of focusing on one case, the show covers a new story at the Justice Center in Cleveland each week.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Lord Of War

      Sep 1, 2019

      Lord Of War
      9 min read

    • Article

      Monsters at Christmas

      Dec 15, 2020

      Monsters at Christmas
      4 min read

    • Article

      Trouble Brews In Minnesota

      Jul 29, 2019

      Edith and Helen Calder haven’t spoken in decades. The sisters’ rift began after the death of their father, who left all the money from the family’s farm to Helen so she could fulfill her dream of opening a brewery. In J. Ryan Stradal’s The Lager Quee

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Blue-collar Bard

      Jul 13, 2020

      The Blue-collar Bard
      13 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The End of the World as We Know It

    4/5

    95 ratings15 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      A dark, well done memoir. The tone in his book, Reliable Wife now makes more sense.
    • 2/5
      Very sad, painful life.
    • 4/5
      What a sad, painful story with some dark humor, but IMO not really funny as some other reviews have stated. Although the book is written in beautiful prose, it reminds me of the graphic novels of Alison Bechdel [Fun Home] and David Small [Stitches: A Memoir]The writing is compelling, but the story is so painful at times that I had to put it down for a few hours.Family secrets are so toxic, especially for children.
    • 4/5
      at times heartbreaking. at times astonishing. at times tremendous writing. at times too much and i had to put it down.
    • 4/5
      Robert Goolrick is best known for A Reliable Wife, which I thought was a fine, if not fantastic, book. Despite this, I picked up a copy of his memoir, The End of the World As We Know It, which he describes as "scenes from a life", because I read the first paragraph and was hooked. Goolrick sucked me into the story of his relationship with his parents and didn't let go until I closed the book. This book, which takes events from his life, or themes, and places them into non-chronological chapters that could be read in any order, although the way he has set things up is to show elements of his life, the alcoholism, say, or the stay in a mental hospital, and then to later put them into the context of his childhood, which was not a carefree one. This is a horrifically difficult book to read, and a compulsively readable one. Goolrick's writing is simultaneously gorgeous and unflinching. I probably would not have picked up this book if I'd known the contents ahead of time, but I'm very glad to have read it. Don't read it if you would prefer not to look at the worst of humanity, but also avoid it if you're a fan of the "misery memoir". This book avoids sugarcoating anything, but there are also no vicarious thrills or moments where love conquers all. It's a very, shockingly, honest account from a damaged and difficult individual, who writes with immense skill.
    • 4/5
      Goolrick's talent for describing a scene is both a blessing and curse and easily evident in this memoir.
    • 4/5
      Couldn't put it down - so well written but very intense
    • 4/5
      Intense from beginning to end. I just wanted to finish it, but I want to read more of his work. Beautiful writing.
    • 2/5
      This is as bleak as a memoir gets, and I hope that it was cathartic for Robert Goolrick to write it. I made it through 100 pages and then closed it. There are simply too many books that enlighten and touch my heart to continue reading. I hope that Goolrick finds the peace that he deserves and people he can trust with his love.
    • 5/5
      Heartbreaking story about a man raised by people who should not have children. It tells a tragic story in a casual way. Great prose. While he tells stories most people bury, he does it in ways that are part of a complete picture and not his story as a victim. This book is not for the faint of heart.
    • 1/5
      I have never wanted more to just stop reading a book halfway through than I have while reading this one. It was so incredibly boring. The stories went on forever- some of them seeming totally unnecessary for the book. I couldn't have been more happier to finish this book and never have to pick it up again.
    • 4/5
      The way this story was told is somewhat jarring at times like the jump from his parents being mad at him to him being in the loony bin (his words) was jarring. No explanation of why he cut himself just that it happened and that he was in the Bin.It was explained in later chapters though.This man’s life, what he has been through and still going through are tough to read about. After telling us about his cutting himself over and over then when he comes to the chapter about the night in September it all makes sense.I read this book because I read his fiction book The Reliable Wife and I saw a lot of similarities between his life and what he wrote in The Reliable Wife like Ralph’s mother told him she didn’t hold him for the first year of his life, Robert’s own mother actually said this to him.I also feel that the character of Ralph in The Reliable Wife is very much a portrait of Robert himself.Heartbreaking and Thought Provoking.
    • 5/5
      I read this book because I was intrigued by the author's novel, A Reliable Wife. End of the World is a very moving memoir that leaves you wondering how the author makes it through the day, and I'm astounded that he has the energy to produce 2 very fine books. The tragic effects of bad parenting are heartbreaking and I won't forget this family. The two books together could lead to a great book group discussion. Mr Goolrick: Please keep writing. We need your voice.
    • 5/5
      I've had this book for nearly a year and just got around to reading it - in just two extended sittings. This is a memoir that reads like a novel. It grabs you by the shirt on page one and yanks you along to the bitter end - and it really is a bitter one. Goolrick is, it would seem, a very screwed up guy, who does not hesitate to admit. But he earned his screwed-up-ness the hard way, through a sad history of abuse, both subtle and physically horrific. A failed suicide who "cuts himself" and a sad man who has endured unhappy love affairs with both sexes, this guy's story just hurts to read sometimes. But his style is near hypnotic. There is nothing fancy or flowery about it. It is terse, stripped-to-the-bone and to-the-point language. There is not a wasted word. It is a mesmerizing look at what it was like to be a part of the "genteel poor" on the academic cocktail circuit in Virginia in the fifties and sixties. This is a slice of America from those times, but not a very tasty one. Goolrick's story is raw and painful, and I often found myself wincing in horror at what he reported. Unhappy or not, this guy can WRITE! I plan to read his novel soon.
    • 5/5
      All of a sudden, in the middle of this book, the writing changed and it became a searing, exquisitely written, amazing turning inside out of a devastated man's soul.