Every so often my way dwindled or closed up unexpectedly

[constantinusphilo]

Every so often my way dwindled or closed up unexpectedly and in my ears a roaring crowd noise, I wasn’t sure where it came from.
Donna Tarrt, The Goldfinch

I don't think this sentence is grammatically correct. Either 'and' is redundant, or 'there was' must be added.

 

[probus]

You are correct, strictly speaking, but given that Tartt won a Pulitzer prize for fiction, I think we have to cut her some slack.

 

[Tdol]

It's creative writing. James Joyce would have failed pretty much every single grammatical test for pretty much every single line of Finnegan's Wake. Novels and poetry are not job application letters- writers take risks and do stuff that grammars say are wrong, often simply because they think it sounds better that way. I guess she liked the sound more without the grammatical necessities. You could add to her grammar crimes here that it is a run-on sentence.