Description

‘Never less than gripping… Reads like a classic’ Observer
‘Exceptional… thrilling and bitter and fulfilling’ Vogue

How do you rebuild a life? How do you move forward into joy when haunted by loss? How do you claim hope, while accepting the harm you’ve caused?

This is the story of a ruptured marriage – one that was once brimming with hope. It is also the story of Leslie Jamison’s consuming love for her young daughter, and the shaping legacy of her own parents’ complicated bond. Exceptionally astute, and written with remarkable candour, Splinters is an account of motherhood, art and love, and what it means for a woman to be many things at once.

‘A treatise on the contradictions of being a mother, a partner, a daughter and an artist – singly, and all at once’ New Statesman
‘Jamison encapsulates lived reality with evocative, embodied detail’ Financial Times
‘Unputdownable… squishing layer upon layer of resonant truths into meticulously crafted paragraphs’ Red

Publisher Review

An exceptional read, guiding [the] reader through [Leslie’s] thrilling and bitter and fulfilling affairs of the heart * Vogue * Beautifully interwoven and unputdownable… squishing layer upon layer of resonant truths into meticulously crafted paragraphs * Red * [Splinters’] pages are lit by flinty humour and grownup joy as thought and feeling are joined in prose that’s intimate and exacting… never less than gripping… A mother-daughter love story that reads like a classic * Observer * An utterly absorbing account of motherhood, love and loss, in jaw-dropping sentences. Jamison transforms familiar subjects into something elemental and unique, and is one of the finest non-fiction storytellers at work in the world today. — Sinead Gleeson Splinters is as sharp and piercing as its title – a brilliant reckoning with what it means to make art, a self, a family, a life… This memoir is a masterclass — Maggie Smith, author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful Leslie Jamison’s blazing memoir kept me riveted for the single day it took to guzzle it down. This wry, hilarious, and utterly unputdownable book is a gift that feels like an immediate hit and a forever classic — Mary Karr, author of Lit and The Art of Memoir An astounding achievement. This is a memoir of emotional depth that reminds us that love, in its fullness, is as much a construction of jagged and flinty edges as an ideal of cloudless skies — Esme Weijun Wang, author of The Collected Schizophrenias Splinters is a treatise on the contradictions of being a mother, a partner, a daughter and an artist – singly, and all at once… Jamison’s love for her daughter is the crux of this book * New Statesman *