Archie's book and film club
Having one of your books praised as “the best memoir I have ever read” by a writer as universally recognized as Stephen King is, to say the least, a heady feeling, and one most authors never dream of experiencing. Which is exactly what happened to Abigail Thomas upon last year’s release of A Three Dog Life.
“Stephen King’s words made me humble, grateful and in awe of his great generosity,” says Thomas. “I also loved that he so completely understood what I wanted the book to be about. He said that the book shows that ‘even when love isn’t enough, somehow it is.’ That actually made me cry.”
A Three Dog Life, which derives its name from the Australian Aboriginal tradition of sleeping with canines for warmth on cold nights, is mostly about Thomas’ struggles after her husband of 12 years, Rich, suffers a traumatic brain injury in April 2000.
But the book is also about the profound love she gives to and receives from her three rescued dogs, a beagle, a dachshund-whippet mix (”a union that must have come with an instruction sheet,” she observes) and, eventually, “some kind of beagle.” SuperWoof!
Authoress Thomas says, strangely, “I’d been a cat person most of my life, then one day I woke up with a burning need for a dog.” “I can’t explain it. Enlightenment?”
A moving and elegant writer, Thomas didn’t pick up a pen until age 48. She got pregnant during her first year at Bryn Mawr, in 1959, and as a result was asked to leave; most of her career she spent working as a book editor and book agent. But Thomas, now 65, says she doesn’t regret taking so long to tap into a skill at which she seems to be naturally blessed.
“I wasn’t ready until I was ready, that’s all,” she explains. “And all those years of not writing I was living, and failing — which makes for great material if nothing else — and gathering, unbeknownst to myself, a full larder of material. I just didn’t know what to do with it until I got to be 48.”
In terms of women who got a late start on their careers Abigail Thomas has good company. Saint Teresa d’Avila, who started on her world-changing career at the age of 40, would whole-heartedly agree. As would Hildegaard of Bingen, who in the 1200s changed the world she lived in, and also made a start on things rather late in her life at around the age of 40.
In addition to two memoirs, Thomas also has published a novel and two short-story collections.
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Posted 27 Sep 07
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©2008 Roleta Archibald, Awoof!™