What Comes Next and How To Like It, A Memoir by Abigail Thomas, Scribner 2015
Well, Anne Lamott is quoted saying about this book, "This may be the most honest book I've ever read by one of the most beautiful writers I know - dizzyingly truthful, often funny, lyrical, wise." Humph.... Could a memoir be that good? Nicely written, not as humorous as Christopher Buckley's collection of essays, you have to hand it to Thomas for combining life experiences - boyfriends, painting, her daughter's illness - with a certain hovering 10 feet above it all perspective. The book is dotted with memorable lines and some delightful short paragraphs - e.g. in "Married Again":
"When Chuck and I first met, I was in love with a poet. 'I'm in it for the pleasure,' I told my poet once, in a moment of bravado.
The poet grinned at me, 'I'm in it for the pain...' It ended sadly.
Another poet, good looking and very intense, once asked me over lunch, 'Abby. What do men want?' I was unable to answer. I said he probably knew the answer better than I did.
'I want to be scorched,' he said.'
Ms. Thomas has had four husbands, four children, more dogs, and one really good friend for thirty-five years.