Unraveling the Dark Comedy of Mortality: Why Annabelle Gurwitch’s New Memoir Will Change How You See Life and Death
Instead of Why me? she explores the How? of her journey. She comes at it by way of Beckett. “When Beckett becomes relatable, you are in dire straits,” says Gurwitch, citing his inscrutable line from Texts for Nothing: “I can’t go on. I will go on.” She emulates the German concept of the “regulars’ table” by launching the “Sunday friends Stammtisch,” a regular get-together with friends with whom she shares a steady bond. The Stammtisch holds steady, while the music band she tries to recreate by getting together with old friends on Zoom doesn’t quite take off. Her marvelous line “We were terrible and we were magnificent” describes that push and pull of fracture and closeness. The “Flowers of Algernon” gets disbanded and the “silly and scared memories” remain, although the who-said-what and who-did-what get blurred. Memory, in this journey, often turns out to be a fickle but endearing trickster.
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