Grumbach, Doris (1918–)

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Grumbach, Doris (1918–)

American novelist and biographer. Born July 12, 1918, in New York, NY; m. Leonard Grumbach, 1941; longtime partner of Sybil Pike (book dealer); children: 4.

During WWII, served in the WAVES; worked as professor of English before becoming columnist and editor at The New Republic; wrote nonfiction column for The New York Times Book Review and taught literature at American University; with partner Sybil Pike, opened Wayward Books in Washington DC and then in Maine; fiction includes The Spoil of Flowers (1962), The Short Throat, The Tender Mouth (1964), Chamber Music (1979), The Missing Person (1981), The Ladies in Waiting (1984), The Magician's Girl (1987), and The Book of Knowledge (1995); also wrote biography of Mary McCarthy, The Company She Kept (1967).

See also memoirs Coming into the End Zone (1991), Extra Innings (1993), Fifty Days of Solitude (1994) and Life in a Day (1996).