Dear Abigail,
I read Safekeeping, well, because I had to, and because that's what graduate students
do: we read and then talk about what we read and then try and do something like it
ourselves, and then maybe talk about why we particularly sucked at it. Something that
came up repeatedly in the conversation about your book was the question of genre: is
Safekeeping a collection of essays, or are they prose poems? Is the book one cohesive
piece? What is it? The conversation could have driven me mad. Half of the class, the half
more inclined towards this habit of labeling and categorizing pieces of writing, wanted to
do just that, and struggled to shove Safekeeping into their pre-made mental boxes that
house different modes of creative nonfiction. The other half, the one I fell into, wanted to
just take the book as it was, to enjoy it as a collective whole, and to do away with any
kind of feeble attempt to break it down in terms of what criteria it did and did not meet.
I read Safekeeping because I had to, but I read it again because it was beautiful. I read it
again because it was one of the first books about relationships that did not make me
want to slam the cover closed and toss it forcibly at a wall. There is something
immensely honest and human about a person attempting to understand her experiences
through writing. After all, that's why we do it, isn't it? To try and understand all the
things we feel and do, to unravel the ridiculous simplicity of something we thought was
earth-shattering, and to sit with the thickness and quiet of the complicated parts? Over
time, as writers, and as people, we learn, and maybe allow the world to teach us, what is
worth trying to understand and what should be left as it is. Like you taught me in your
book, sometimes things simply are what they are. "She had learned by then," you wrote,
"it wasn't necessary to keep setting the record straight."
This book is a perfect example of a writer both unraveling ridiculous simplicity and
sitting with the complications of adulthood, parenthood, and relationships. Even its
alternating structure of short, to-the-point vignettes to longer, more intimate
recollections and reflections, this book seems an accurate portrait of the way we
remember things—in pieces, and not always in order of importance or worth. As you
showed in this book, even those small, seemingly insignificant moments are deserving of
pages in our story, like the way someone we love speaks our name in that way that only
they can: "It was the inflection maybe, something you put into those three syllables. And
now you are gone and my name is just my name again, not the story of my life."
I read Safekeeping because I had to, but I'll keep revisiting and reading it again and
again because it validates the parts of writing that I love the most, the parts I think
reflect the most about the human experience—brokenness, honesty, and a desire to
understand.
Best,
Sara Walters