What Comes Next And How To like It

What Comes Next and How to Like It by Abigail Thomas
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is such an interesting collection of vignettes that use short prose and the careful selection of quotidian details to circling themes of mortality and friendship. It deals more in the craft of painting than in writing, and that's maybe good, because it's easier to dislike Thomas when she's talking about herself as a writer, but she's pretty interesting as a novice painter.

She's an honest and flawed teller of her own story, and she approaches aging flinchingly, and with humor.

It's interesting to read this novel after the tidal wave of the Me Too movement, and wonder if perhaps the easy forgiveness that Thomas offers long-time friend Chuck requires a consideration of power and vulnerability. What I mean is, while Thomas and Chuck have an intimate connection, she is older and his professional superior. It is not until it is her daughter, working for Chuck, that he sacrifices his marriage for a brief affair. It's a loud omission that might have begged a quieter question when it was first published. Part of the reason I wish Thomas had addressed it is because I think she might have had interesting things to say about it. Hers is a consistently interesting mind.

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