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Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing Paperback – February 28, 2023

by Abigail Thomas (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 54 ratings
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In her new memoir, Abigail Thomas ruminates on aging during the confines of COVID-19 with her trademark mix of humor and wisdom, including valuable, contemplative writing tips along the way.

As she approaches eighty, what she herself calls old age, Abigail Thomas accepts her new life, quieter than before, no driving, no dancing, mostly sitting in her chair in a sunny corner with three dogs for company—three dogs, vivid memories, bugs and birds and critters that she watches out her window. No one but this beloved, best-selling memoirist, could make so much over what might seem so little.

Memories fall like confetti, as time contracts, shoots forward, dawdles, and there she is, back in her twenties in Washington Square Park, drinking, having sex with strangers, falling in and out of love, believing in a better world. Whole decades evaporate as she sits in her chair, and a spider takes up residence beside her, who will become her boon companion for the next week.

Sometimes dread arrives, inhabits her body like a shadow and all she can do is write it away, pay attention to what catches her eye, sticks in her brain. Whatever keeps her in the moment.

Pull up a chair, have a cup of tea and enter Abigail Thomas's funny, mesmerizing, generous world.

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  1. Print length
    196 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Golden Notebook Press
  4. Publication date
    February 28, 2023
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0967554128
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0967554129
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Irreverent, wise, and boundlessly generous."—Elissa Schappell Vanity Fair

 "I want to grow old the way Abigail Thomas is growing old—with grace and with, humor and honest, dogs and dear friends."—Laurie Hertzel Minneapolis Star Tribune)

"I would follow Abigail Thomas on any journey she ever takes. The arrival of a new book from this master is always a cause for celebration, because I know right away that I'm about to learn something important about the art of writing and the art of living, both. I come to her books as though to a feast, and leave fulfilled and transformed."—Elizabeth Gilbert

"Abigail Thomas is the Emily Dickinson of memoirists, and so much of this book's wisdom is between the lines and in the white spaces. It may only take you two days to read, but the impact will stay with you for a long, long time. Abigail Thomas fills memory with living breath."—Stephen King

"It's so very rare for a memoir to tell the naked truth about aging--its terrors and its treasures, its indignities and its mysteries. Who else but Abigail Thomas to lift the veil and show us how she is navigating her eighties. Here she is, sitting still in her chair, traveling on a river that flows both ways--backwards slowly on the tides of memory, forward at a fast clip onward toward the open ocean. And sometimes, because of friends, because of dogs, because of children and home, writing and a wisteria vine, time stands still, and life is life, Abigail is Abigail, and once again we get to marvel with her, wonder with her, laugh and cry and rage with her. Thank you, Abigail, for the potent words to get us all through."—Elizabeth Lesser

About the Author

Abigail Thomas worked as both a book editor and book agent before writing her own first collection of short stories, Getting Over Tom. Her second and third books An Actual Life, and Herb’s Pajamas, were works of fiction. Thomas’ memoir, A Three Dog Life, was named one of the best books of 2006 by The Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, and received the 2006 Inspirational Memoir Award given by Books for A Better Life. She is also author of the memoirs Safekeeping, Thinking About Memoir and What Comes Next and How to Like It. In her new book, Still Life at 80, Thomas ruminates on aging during the confines of COVID-19 with her trademark mix of humor and wisdom, including valuable, contemplative writing tips along the way. She lives in Woodstock, New York.


Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Golden Notebook Press (February 28, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 196 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0967554128
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0967554129
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 54 ratings

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
54 global ratings
The ultimate memoir by a brilliant writer
5 Stars
The ultimate memoir by a brilliant writer
What a terrific memoir, Abigail Thomas’s writing is as always graceful, proud and witty. At last someone comments that “ journaling” is not a literary term! This is a brilliant memoir and I’m an admirer of her other memoirs. Three Dog Life was the first Abigail Thomas memoir I read and I’ve been enthralled ever since!
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Top reviews from the United States

Tucson Blue Hair
5.0 out of 5 stars A Memoir to Remember
Reviewed in the United States on October 31, 2023
Verified Purchase
Abigail Thomas' "Still Life..." is thought provoking, funny, and genuine. If you have lived on this earth for 50 years or more, you will surely see the world around you a bit differently; for the better. I wish she was my neighbor!
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Deborah A. Lott
5.0 out of 5 stars Read it twice and feel it deepen
Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
Abigail Thomas's work can be deceiving; it seems so effortless, so off the top of her head. Don't be deceived. She is as close to an enlightened being as you're apt to encounter in this lifetime. No one is this unpretentious, unapologetic, irreverent, and utterly honest about what it means to be alive and to age in a body. No one captures stream of consciousness and the way we actually perceive time -- whether it's moment to moment, or childhood to old age -- better than she does. Nobody can write a phrase that begins in humor and turns tragic in a heartbeat like she does. The meaning in these short pieces is cumulative as themes recur in piece after piece and their meaning accrues. You can read this book to learn how to write; you can also read it to learn how to live.
9 people found this helpful
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amyg
5.0 out of 5 stars Another must-read memoir from a writer who is *still* in her prime
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2023
Verified Purchase
As a long time fan of Abigail Thomas' writing, I pre-ordered "Still Life at 80" as soon as I heard about it. What a treat to have another amazing memoir from a writer who can so perfectly capture a moment and turn it into a piece of writing that you just want to melt into.

Thomas' chapters on aging and death are like deep breathing exercises -- she has a way of inviting you into her day, offering up whimsical details only to side-swipe you with such a heartbreaking thought you want to reach out to her and share your own stories. Or she does just the opposite, taking your from heartbreak to laughter without the slightest warning of what's to come.

It is especially satisfying to read someone who has reached a point in her life with so much wisdom ... and the ability to look back at it all with a clear eye, giving herself -- and by extension the reader -- a profound sense of grace.

Reading Abigail Thomas has always been a bit like going to church for me (or, at least, what I wish church had been like when I still attended services) and this memoir is the Christmas or Easter version of mass. If you loved her previous memoirs, you are going to love this one just as much or more. If you've never read Abigail Thomas, I am so very jealous you'll get to experience her work for the first time.
23 people found this helpful
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Jane Edberg
5.0 out of 5 stars Authentic and Direct, No Fuss, Pure Brevity
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2023
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I have read all of Abigail's books, and in fact, after years of studying the craft of writing, I made a quantum leap when I first laid eyes on her writing. Abigail gets right to the point and doesn't indulge us in copious amounts of description and scene, her brevity and honesty, and her straightforward approach is what carries her stories straight to the heart of the matter. With clarity she focuses on a single thing and deep dives without tipping over the reader. I feel calm in her words ,even when she reveals darker truths, so matter of fact, that I trust her experience. Tender, but thrilled to observe, she welcomes humanness. What I also love about Abigail's writing—her words are poetry.
14 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
4.0 out of 5 stars Abigail Thomas's eighty is nothing you've experienced before ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2023
Verified Purchase
It’s rare that an author invites us to enter the sacristy of her mind as unapologetically as Abigail Thomas. After two short story collections, one novel, and four works of nonfiction, including the memoirs Safekeeping: A Three Dog life; What Comes Next and How to Like It; and Thinking About Memoir, Thomas has primed us to embrace her unconventional, quirky, and irreverent lifestyle.

Thomas’s newest memoir, Still Life at Eighty; The Next Interesting Thing, is a fresh take on what it means to age in a society that embraces youth. For Abigail Thomas, eighty is letting go – not of life, but of all the expectations with which life burdens us. Throwing out her makeup, taking a nap in the middle of the day, and not feeling guilty about something or everything, Thomas has eighty down. Even during a pandemic. Even at her annual check up when her doctor asks her to count backward by sevens. Even when her beloved dog dies. And despite youthfulness that smacks her in the face – she’s relieved, she writes, when she sees a young woman on the street with her whole life in front of her – relieved because her first thought is thank God that isn’t me.

Thomas muses about small things. The pandemic has forced her indoors, away from people. She focuses on a one-winged wasp, the squirrels burying the carrots she threw out for them yesterday, she learns how to spatchcock a chicken and spatchcocks chicken three days in a row, never eating the chicken, but delights to learn the root of the term from her American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, where she also learns the root for death – she thinks it means to flow – but then she realizes she is looking at the wrong reference, dead is dead, she says.

On her eightieth birthday, Thomas gets a tattoo. For her sixtieth birthday, she had a salamander tattooed on her right arm, so this one will go on her left, just the initials FTS, because the salamander hurt too much. Because we’re on the radio, I’ll leave the interpretation up to your imagination. Just know, that it’s trademark Abigail Thomas – irreverent, outrageous, unexpected. So not eighty.

This is a collection of flash memoir – some chapters are a mere paragraph, others three pages long; the threads of a life all woven together with Thomas’s wit and wisdom. You won’t find the secret of life buried here among the sentences and paragraphs, what you will find, however, will be transparency and authenticity – you’ll find a woman who has come to terms with being referred to as elderly … because, frankly, Abigail Thomas’s eighty is nothing you’ve experienced before.
7 people found this helpful
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Carole Duff
5.0 out of 5 stars Thomas stands back, gets close, and ends up with stories woven with acceptance
Reviewed in the United States on April 2, 2024
Verified Purchase
At eighty, Abigail Thomas knows lots of things get left behind rather than remembered, but what is remembered is addressed with clarity, from bugs to people, especially herself. “If you come out as anything but profoundly human… you haven’t stood far enough back, or come close enough. If you end up where you started… you may not have looked hard enough.” Thomas stands back, gets close, and ends up with stories woven with acceptance rather than shame or guilt. Her manifesto? “Tell the hard truths, clear your vision, be of use.”
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Patti Wilkerson
5.0 out of 5 stars she is the best writer ever!
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2023
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I loved this book and I love all Abigale writes. She is honest, funny, and heartwarming. Read this and Three Dog Life!!
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New York Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate memoir by a brilliant writer
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2023
Verified Purchase
What a terrific memoir, Abigail Thomas’s writing is as always graceful, proud and witty. At last someone comments that “ journaling” is not a literary term! This is a brilliant memoir and I’m an admirer of her other memoirs. Three Dog Life was the first Abigail Thomas memoir I read and I’ve been enthralled ever since!
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New York Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars The ultimate memoir by a brilliant writer
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2023
What a terrific memoir, Abigail Thomas’s writing is as always graceful, proud and witty. At last someone comments that “ journaling” is not a literary term! This is a brilliant memoir and I’m an admirer of her other memoirs. Three Dog Life was the first Abigail Thomas memoir I read and I’ve been enthralled ever since!
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5 people found this helpful
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