Leslie Jamison's captivating Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story is a straightforward memoir from an ambitious writer celebrated for her wide-ranging essays. In Splinters, Jamison (Make It Scream, Make It Burn; The Empathy Exams; The Recovering) navigates the aftermath of an ended marriage while her new life as a single mother unfolds. At the time of separation, their child was only one year old. It's not easy, this life she chooses: there's a pandemic; a hostile co-parent; a doomed long-distance love affair; classes to teach and students to mentor; and, above all, a transformation into the mother of a young child.
The constant in Jamison's life seems to be dramatic change, something a friend points out to her when pressed about their cooling friendship. The author interrogates herself: "Why did I keep pursuing these thresholds, even as I told myself I wanted something else? Maybe every rupture offered the chance to emerge as someone else, slightly altered, on the other side of each crisis." It's a pattern repeated throughout the text, the questioning of her choices and the possible reasons behind her decisions. It works because, among other admirable attributes, Jamison is a hyperaware writer with a sly sense of humor. About her husband, she writes: "I came to hold both truths at once: I'd caused him deep and lasting harm, by leaving him. And also, I did not regret choosing a life that would not share a home with his anger. When I say I held both truths, I mean that I lay with them, sleepless, in the dark." --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator