Herb's Pajamas [Hardcover]

Abigail Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 3, 1998

With her own special brand of delicate, elliptical, and humorous fiction, Abigail Thomas offers another extraordinary visit with people she knows far better than they know themselves. There's Walter, newly abandoned by his wife; there's Edith, a fiftyish virgin; there's Bunny, taking care of her mother and her mother's boyfriend; and there's Belle, whose married lover dies in the hallway wearing her dead husband Herb's pajama top. Blindly, they encounter one another in ways the reader recognizes are profound even as the characters themselves are unaware. The genius and the art in this collection derives from the possibility that these ships might actually find each other by daylight. If only these four could get together--they'd be so good for each other. "Written with an expert touch, and a wise and tender sensibility. The effect is subtle, strong, and comic."--Charles Baxter, author of BELIEVERS and BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE; "It's hard to think she is capable of writing anything that isn't immediately engaging and a joy to read. Probably someone should publish her shopping lists."--Elizabeth Berg, author of TALK BEFORE SLEEP. A BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB SELECTION

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A less commercial book than Herb's Pajamas is difficult to imagine. Part novel, part collection of interlinked stories, it follows four New Yorkers living lives of quiet desperation on a single square block of Manhattan's Upper West Side. In the first and perhaps most fully realized section, a mild-mannered copyeditor both mourns and fails to understand his much-loved wife's departure. Cleverly divided into tiny vignettes entitled "Hat," "Gloves," and so on, "Edith's Wardrobe" follows a "trembly maiden of 52" as she daydreams her way through the aftermath of her mother's death. In the third section, a 14-year-old runs away from home to search for her missing sister, while the aging narrator of the brief title story finds her married lover dead on the fire escape and must decide what to do with his body.

Rather than bring these lonely people together in a more conventionally novelistic way, Thomas instead allows them to brush by each other in the street without ever noticing, much as they might in real life. Thomas's characters haunt the same bookstores, the same neighborhood cafés, and the reader experiences the thrill of recognition when their paths cross. (Is that Walter we spot in the movie theater lobby? Is the "woman in the green shawl" the bookstore owner, and has he finally asked her out?) The choice is both daring and apt. As much as these characters want to connect to the world around them, their inability to do so is precisely the point of this slender, quietly witty book.

From Publishers Weekly

The four lonely Upper West Siders who inhabit this muted but moving collection of 18 related short stories have each lost something and want it back. Middle-aged Walter's wife has left him, and he can't come to terms with her desire merely to be his friend. Edith, "a trembly maiden of 52" who has never seen a man naked, yearns to connect but doesn't know how, while her neighbor, the widowed, aging Belle, finds her own lover, "the sweetest man who ever lived," dead in the kitchen and must dispose of his body. The most appealing character is the protagonist of "Bunny's Sister," a gently drawn account of a 14-year-old's journey to find her runaway sibling, who disappeared one day after announcing: "I'm smoke." Along the way, we gradually come to understand that Bunny has known all along how her journey will end, and that makes her sadness sharper for the reader. Although the carefully chronicled minor events that make up these stories don't always amount to much on their own, Thomas (An Actual Life) has a way with details that makes for endings as bittersweet as her beginnings.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 210 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1st edition (January 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565121899
• ISBN-13: 978-1565121898
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #387,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Oh what a tangled web she wove!, August 23, 1998

By 

"ttgayle" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Herb's Pajamas (Hardcover)

Herb's Pajamas is almost a five-star, maybe a 4.8 !!

What a fascinating little book. I am not usually the "short story type", however I was very intrigued by this book. The author's style of somehow fitting all four stories together was quite different. As I read the book, I was curious as to how things were going to tie together. I even re-read the book to see what "tie-ins" I had missed.

The characters were GREAT. From the 52 year old virgin to the book store owner...what an ecclectic group of people! A great passage is when Thomas writes of Georgia's (bookstore owner) conception of her child, Lorenzo, the much loved product of a "one-afternoon stand". What great writing in just a few short paragraphs.

Readers who are just "surface readers" will enjoy these tales, but those readers who enjoy delving deeper will really find this book quite good. Nice little compact size as well, and the cover shot is a classic.

I have never read Abigail Thomas' works before, but now I'm eager for more.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a superbly crafted ensemble of vignettes, December 14, 2004

By 

Gail Cooke (TX, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Herb's Pajamas (Hardcover)

Herb's Pajamas, a superbly crafted ensemble of related vignettes, reminds us that life holds both laughter and loss. Happily, life also holds the writing of Abigail Thomas, a former editor who has the uncanny ability to incisively yet deferentially reveal her characters' hearts.
With an ear for nuance and unerring eye Ms. Thomas presents four Manhattanites, all apartment dwellers on the Upper West Side. What a bittersweet quartet they are - strangers inhabiting the same block, patronizing the same shoe repair, browsing the same book shop, as each, in his or her own way, struggles to cope with loss.

Walter, the middle-aged author of a moderately successful sci-fi epic is plagued by insomnia as he waits, hoping that his wife will return. Although he dreams of coming home one day to find her in the kitchen, "pots of things simmering on the stove," his only solace is found in vivid memories of happier days.

Although disagreements have separated them, Walter tends to his aged mother, taking her on outings. Mindful of her dislike for plastic utensils, he brings along a silver spoon with which he feeds her vanilla ice cream from a vendor's cup. When she declares her love, his eyes fill as he says he loves her, too, "Grateful to whatever it is that allowed him to love her at long last."

At fifty-four Edith has never seen a man naked. Seeking to satisfy her curiosity she treks to the Metropolitan Museum in search of statuary only to remember that it's Monday and, of course, the Museum is closed. She settles for a bacon sandwich. When opportunity does arrive in the form of a dotty exhibitionist, one glance is all she needs to deem the sight a letdown - just another in the string of disappointments that punctuate Edith's days.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking member of this foursome is Bunny, a 14-year-old runaway whose all-wise facade is so brittle we fear she'll soon break. She's headed for the inked "X" on a dog eared picture postcard sent by her beloved older sister who disappeared sometime ago. Spurred on by hash brownies and nowhere else to go she reaches her destination which, inevitably, it seems, is a bridge.

Heroine of the title piece is sixtyish Belle whose lover dies outside her apartment door clad in her late husband's pajama top. Belle's solution to this inconvenient occurrence is hilarious, thoughtful, and fitting. But, as Belle says, "I have given love freely and sometimes God cuts me a little slack."

No slack needs to be cut for Ms. Thomas who blends humor and pathos, deftly capturing quicksilver with a phrase. Estrangement and love, alienation and devotion, laughter and tears are brush strokes in these artfully sketched portraits. Herb's Pajamas shines not because characters are drawn larger than life but because they are drawn so poignantly true to life.

- Gail Cooke

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, February 28, 2001

By 

Marianne "[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Herb's Pajamas (Hardcover)

Read this book. Such wonderful characters-Walter, Edith, Bunny. Thomas delineates her characters so profoundly you can only take them into your heart. The words are woven on saffron. Buy this book for yourself and your friends. It's a wonderful read. You won't be sorry.