Bridgers incorporates contemporary social issues into the plot of Notes for Another Life: divorce, mental illness, suicide, and women's changing role in the family. She presents these issues openly and honestly with specific details, but her intent is not to shock, excite, or anger her reader. It is to enlighten, to cause the reader to reflect upon these situations and come away with a better understanding of how these issues affect people's lives.

Tom Jackson's mental illness is described with clarity and realism. Karen remembers how it all began, the physical complaints and the gradual withdrawal, "the unwashed smell, the dull pallor of sickly skin." Bliss admits Tom will have to go back to the hospital when he will no longer eat and she cannot get him to the bathroom. And when he gives up and refuses to get out of bed, even Bliss loses patience...