I went to the Woodstock Writer’s Festival in March. My favorite part was Tim Donahue’s interview with Abigail Thomas. I didn’t take notes, so this is what I remember:
Somehow, it came up that Abigail had recently tried to read Kerouac’s On The Road but couldn’t finish it.
“You hated it?” asked Tim (who was hilarious, himself).
“Yes,” said Abigail, holding up her fist in front of her mouth and aiming an embarrassed/bewildered shrug at the audience.
“Was there no irony back then?” she asked, looking at Tim and splaying out her hands. And then she looked out at us. “I mean, he sent his laundry home to his mother.”
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She said that she loved getting old, that talking about aches and pains and about who was taking what meds was as exciting for old people as talking about sex is for young people.
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An audience member asked something about the process of writing, about being a writer—I’m not really sure. Abigail talked about how writing, for her, was what she had to do to understand anything. The questioner followed up by asking what she did when she wasn’t writing, when she couldn’t write—Abigail has written about how she often can’t write. How does she survive?
“I drink,” she said. And nodded her head.
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She was also asked to comment on why her writing does not follow a chronological order, and she said that she doesn’t like chronology, that we don’t remember things chronologically. “I don’t even know what chronology is,” she said.
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Another question: would she be writing another memoir? She answered, “God, I hope not. Memoir is always about loss, and I don’t want to lose anymore. I’ll just stick to writing essays about getting old.”