Thomas, Abigail. Safekeeping. New York: Random House, 2000.

Abigail Thomas’ book, Safekeeping, took me by surprise. I was several chapters in before fully understanding her technique. “Several” chapters was the span of a mere seven, or maybe eight pages. And I’m not sure how I feel about it. The story does not come together as a whole, not really, until the end. It reads like a diary – a well crafted diary. Some chapters are less than a page, really just notes. Notes to a dead ex-husband.

It was interesting to me how Thomas wove her relationships into the text; particularly her relationships with her second two husbands. Their relationship with each other was more intriguing – but, sadly, was left mostly unexplored. She reflects on her life with these men and her life with her children as she considers her own mortality.

The text focused on the issue of grief – like Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Unlike Didion, Thomas gives her reader her feelings of fragmentation; short pages, annotations, subtext that is perhaps not clear for several pages more. While Didion relates to her reader that she felt this way: disconnected and disjointed, what she gives her reader in the end is a polished, well organized book written in solid chapters. Didion’s book was easier to wrap my mind around – but I think that Thomas’ book ultimately gives me a clearer picture of the process of grief.