In her new book, Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life,” Abigail Thomas has written what could be classified as a memoir. But “Safekeeping” is written in a completely unexpected way – it’s made up of small, surprising moments that are put together in a completely fresh and wonderful way. Many of these moments are captured in a brief paragraph, unfailingly humble and beautiful; a palm that has been opened to us. Thomas says: “All I can do is chip away, see what happens in my hand, look for the shape.”
Storage is told in both first and third person, and by changing the point of view, Thomas has created a subtle, elegant distance for the reader; another place to breathe. Interspersed throughout the book are tense phone conversations between her and her sister, who advises Thomas on the hook. “You have to explain it better,” her sister says, explaining to the reader that preservation is a form in process, a construct. What’s amazing about this book is its refusal to put life into a clear, linear framework. Time jumps 30 years forward and backward in a single paragraph, but the book never feels random or haphazard. Thomas has given honest form to the fluidity of memory.
This is Thomas’s life story: she got married at 18, had three children, and divorced eight years later. Then she moved back home and lived in her parents’ basement. She explains: “It was 1968, but she was a child of the fifties, she needed a man. And not just any man, but a man. A man who would provide her with a center. She didn’t have one of her own.” So what does she do? She remarries, has another child, divorces and remarries the man she is still married to.
Thomas is now a grandmother and a teacher; she bakes apple cakes and chickens; she feeds. I devoured this book, all in one sitting. And then I did it again, wishing there was more. Thomas’s life, riddled with complexity, births and deaths, promiscuity and regret, is filled on the page with warmth and authenticity. She remembers being 16 years old, wearing a tight sweater and a short plaid skirt, and walking past men in New York City who were staring at her. “Oh, my God,” she realized. I have power. Like most power, it was both very real and completely illusory. But she spent the next 40 years looking back on it. It didn’t stop her. It was her path. Her ambition was to do better. Now it’s over, and what a relief. She can finally work a little bit.”