Safekeeping

A beautifully crafted and inviting account of one woman's life,Safekeepingoffers a sublimely different kind of autobiography. Setting aside a straightforward narrative in favor of brief passages of vivid prose, Abigail Thomas revisits the pivotal moments and the tiny incidents that have shaped her life: pregnancy at 18; single motherhood (of three!) by the age of 26; the joys and frustrations of three marriages; and the death of her second husband, who was her best friend. The stories made of these incidents are startling in their clarity and reassuring in their wisdom. This is a book in which silence speaks as eloquently as what is revealed. Openhearted and effortlessly funny, these brilliantly selected glimpses of the arc of a life are, in an age of excessive confession and recrimination, a welcome tonic.

Abigail Thomas is the author of the novel <b>An Actual Life</b> and the story collections <b>Getting Over Tom</b> and <b>Herb's Pajamas</b>. She lives with her husband in New York City, where she teaches in the M.F.A. writing program at the New School. <br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>