Thomas, Abigail 1941–

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Thomas, Abigail 1941–

PERSONAL:

Born 1941, in Boston, MA; married third husband, Richard Rogin (deceased); children: four. Education: Attended Bryn Mawr College.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Woodstock, NY. Agent—Chuck Verrill, Darhansoff, Verrill, Feldman, 236 W. 26th St. #802, New York, NY 10001. E-mail—abigailthomas@verizon.net.

CAREER:

Viking Press, New York, NY, former literary agent and editor; author, 1988—. Also teaches fiction writing at New School University and Queens University.

WRITINGS:

FOR CHILDREN

Wake up, Wilson Street, illustrated by William Low, Holt (New York, NY), 1993.

Pearl Paints, illustrated by Margaret Hewitt, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.

Lily, illustrated by William Low, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.

ADULT FICTION

Getting over Tom: Stories, Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1994.

An Actual Life (novel), Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1996.

Herb's Pajamas (short stories), Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 1998.

OTHER

Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life (memoir), Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.

A Three Dog Life: A Memoir, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2006.

Contributor of short stories and poetry to numerous magazines and journals, including Alaska Review, Paris Review, Missouri Review, Santa Monica Review, Little Magazine, Ms., Paris Review, and Nation.

SIDELIGHTS:

Former literary agent Abigail Thomas is the author of memoirs, fiction for adults, and picture books for preschool and early-elementary-age readers. On her Web site, Thomas noted: "Most of what I write is drawn from personal experience, so for me it's pretty simple—some stories need to be served straight up. That's nonfiction. Others need more architecture, that's fiction. It's a decision best left to the gut."

Thomas published her first title, Wake up, Wilson Street, in 1993. In the work, little Joe and his grandmother sit in a rocking chair very early one Saturday morning and observe the rhythm of daily life that unfolds on their street. Thomas's 1994 book, Lily, was illustrated in rich hues by artist William Low. With this title, Thomas takes a somewhat radical approach in dealing with her young audience, giving them no identifiable character like themselves on which to attach; the title character is instead a lovable little black dog. Lily lives with Eliza in a big city, and her canine comfort is greatly disrupted when movers come to move all of Lily's familiar surroundings to rural Vermont. The young reader, noted Booklist contributor Stephanie Zvirin, "won't fail to respond to Lily's confusion and fear." Thomas's story "teaches that home, even if a doghouse, is where the heart is," assessed a reviewer in Publishers Weekly.

Pearl Paints, another of Thomas's children's books, follows the newfound fervor of budding artist Pearl. After receiving art supplies for her birthday, she takes up painting with such a passion that her family becomes worried. At night, Pearl even dreams about painting, and Margaret Hewitt's illustrations have Pearl envisioning the works of the masters in these passages. Only her Aunt Peg lends support, and the drama ends happily when her family approves of the fantastic mural Pearl creates on her bedroom wall. School Library Journal contributor Alexandra Marris found the plot had "an offhand, slapdash quality," though Booklist reviewer April Judge deemed it an excellent way to introduce young learners to the visual arts. An interesting aside, noted by a Publishers Weekly reviewer, mentioned that the illustrator Hewitt had met her husband William Low—whom Thomas had worked with on her first two books—at a New York City art store called Pearl Paint; Thomas wrote the tale as an homage to her friends.

Thomas has also published several collections of short fiction. Getting over Tom: Stories appeared in 1994, a trio of short "incredibly touching stories … about the eventuality of love found," wrote Mary Frances Wilkens in Booklist. One tale revolves around two teen sisters, another deals with an unplanned pregnancy, and the third tells of a romance with a vast difference in age. All feature a character named Virginia at various life crises over three decades. "A powerful collection," noted a Kirkus Reviews critic, mentioning also Thomas's background as a literary agent—"the experience shows," noted the reviewer, comparing Thomas's fiction to that of writers Alice Adams and Bobbie Ann Mason for its sensitive and insightful portraits of women.

In her 1996 novel, An Actual Life, Thomas again introduces Virginia, married at a young age after her unexpected pregnancy. The novel is set in 1960 and unfolds as Virginia and her husband, Buddy, arrive in Buddy's home town in New Jersey. But the marriage to Buddy is a forced, unhappy one, and his unfaithfulness with an old flame from high school calls upon stores of nerve and reserve Virginia was unaware she possessed. "Thomas does a masterful job in portraying Virginia, [who] has little sense of herself," declared Publishers Weekly. A Kirkus Reviews critic noted that while Thomas may not have based her novel on any startlingly original idea, in her hands the tale, "quietly told, resonates in a powerful way." In her New York Times Book Review piece, Paula Friedman found its ending "somewhat predictable," but praised Thomas's ability to evoke sympathy for Virginia's "painful feelings of jealousy and alienation."

Herb's Pajamas is the third of Thomas's works of fiction for adult readers. A collection of eighteen interrelated stories, the common setting is New York City's Upper West Side. The four protagonists, who vary in background and motivation, share a common bond—"profound loneliness and desperation," according to Booklist reviewer Kathleen Hughes. A teen searches for her runaway sister, a introvert wonders why his wife has left him, and a middle-aged woman comes to terms with the death of her aged film-star mother. In the title vignette, a widowed woman's lover dies in her bed, wearing her late husband's sleeping gear. Reviewing Herb's Pajamas for Library Journal, Barbara Hoffert termed the book "a pleasing tale that never veers into bathos." New York Times Book Review contributor Barbara Quick praised Thomas's precise pitch in rendering each of her characters' voices, and the wit and psychological insight evident in many passages. "While no resolutions are offered, the book is, nevertheless, full of hope," wrote Quick. "We are left feeling that all these people will somehow find their way."

In 2000 the author published her first autobiographical work, Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, "a magical memoir that looks at the various stages of the author's life with astounding clarity," observed Bookreporter.com reviewer Megan Kalan. Comprised of short chapters, some no more than a paragraph long, Safekeeping examines Thomas's relationship with her family and friends, including her sister, who appears in several of the tales, her children and grandchildren, and her second husband, who died of cancer following their divorce. "In a series of poignant vignettes, each complete within itself, Thomas succeeds in conveying an engrossing life story in surprising depth," remarked a contributor in Publishers Weekly. "Precisely lyrical, silver-gilt, fevered, and in the end, sweet," wrote GraceAnne A. DeCandido in Booklist.

That same year, Thomas's life was irrevocably changed when her husband, Richard Rogin, was hit by a car while out walking their dog. Though he survived the accident, Rogin suffered extensive brain damage, experienced hallucinations and paranoid episodes, and eventually required institutional care. The author chronicles her husband's painful deterioration and her attempts to reinvent her marriage in the 2006 work A Three Dog Life: A Memoir, "an extraordinary, but horrific, love story," wrote Entertainment Weekly contributor Rebecca Ascher-Walsh.

Much of the work focuses on Thomas's gut-wrenching decision to place her husband in a special care facility. "How do I live with myself?" Thomas wrote in a New York Times essay. "What kind of woman am I that I can leave my husband in this place? What about my wedding vows? Who am I that keeping hold of my own life is more important than taking care of my husband? But I can't take care of him. The truth is that no single person, no two people could take care of a man in Rich's condition." Calling A Three Dog Life "an affecting account of guilt, shame and acceptance," a critic in Kirkus Reviews noted that the author's efforts to nurse her husband at home "would mean sacrificing her own life to become not just his caretaker, but his jailer." Instead, Thomas "faced her guilt, turning it into a quiet gratitude and finding the necessary emotional resources for survival," remarked Library Journal contributor Pam Kingsbury. "For Thomas, it seems, the act of writing itself has become an act of redemption," commented Suki Casanave in the Washington Post Book World. "From the depths of catastrophe, she has crafted a painfully honest and loving portrait of the irrevocably altered life she finds herself leading. The stories are few, the moments are spare, but what Thomas tells us is shot through with light."

"Writing is the way I ground myself, what keeps me sane." Thomas remarked on her Web site. "Writing is the way I try and make sense of my life, try to find meaning in accident, reasons why what happens happens—even though I know that why is a distraction, and meaning you have to cobble together yourself. Sometimes just holding a pen in my hand and writing milk butter eggs sugar calms me. Truth is what I'm ultimately after, truth or clarity."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Thomas, Abigail, Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life, Knopf (New York, NY), 2000.

Thomas, Abigail, A Three Dog Life: A Memoir, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Bomb, summer, 2000, Suzan Sherman, review of Safekeeping: Some True Stories from a Life.

Booklist, May 1, 1993, Janice Del Negro, review of Wake Up, Wilson Street, p. 1606; April 15, 1994, Mary Frances Wilkens, review of Getting over Tom, p. 1516, and Stephanie Zvirin, review of Lily, p. 1542; December 1, 1994, April Judge, review of Pearl Paints, p. 688; March 1, 1998, Kathleen Hughes, review of Herb's Pajamas, p. 1096; March 15, 2000, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Safekeeping, p. 1300; August 1, 2006, Donna Chavez, review of A Three Dog Life: A Memoir, p. 28.

Entertainment Weekly, September 8, 2006, Rebecca Ascher-Walsh, review of A Three Dog Life, p. 163.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1994, review of Getting over Tom, p. 337, and review of Lily, p. 405; February 1, 1996, review of An Actual Life, p. 170; May 15, 2006, review of A Three Dog Life, p. S18; June 15, 2006, review of A Three Dog Life, p. 628.

Library Journal, April 15, 1994, review of Getting over Tom, p. 116; April 1, 1996, review of An Actual Life, p. 120; April 15, 1998, Barbara Hoffert, review of Herb's Pajamas, p. 116; April 15, 2000, Joyce Sparrow, review of Safekeeping, p. 91; June 1, 2006, Pam Kingsbury, review of A Three Dog Life, p. 117.

New York Times, August 6, 2006, Abigail Thomas, "My Husband Survived; the Man I Married Didn't," p. ST7.

New York Times Book Review, June 9, 1996, Paula Friedman, review of An Actual Life, p. 22; May 31, 1998, Barbara Quick, review of Herb's Pajamas, p. 49; April 30, 2000, review of Safekeeping, p. 27.

O, the Oprah Magazine, January 1, 2002, "Longing for Home: A Horrendous Accident Put Abigail Thomas's Husband in the Hospital, and Their Old Life on Hold," p. 104.

Publishers Weekly, February 28, 1994, review of Lily, p. 86; October 24, 1994, review of Pearl Paints, p. 60; March 11, 1996, review of An Actual Life, p. 40; January 19, 1998, review of Herb's Pajamas, p. 371; March 13, 2000, review of Safekeeping, p. 70; May 15, 2006, review of A Three Dog Life, p. 55.

School Library Journal, April, 1993, Nancy Seiner, "Wake Up, Wilson Street," p. 103; August, 1994, review of Lily, p. 147; December, 1994, Alexandra Marris, review of Pearl Paints, p. 87.

Self, July 1, 2003, "Learning to Live Alone," p. 45.

Vanity Fair, October 1, 2006, "Three-dog Nightmare," p. 146.

Washington Post Book World, October 8, 2006, Suki Casanave, "Woman's Best Friend," p. 10.