Daughter, Mother, Wife, Girlfriend, Artist: On Splintered Identity

I’ve learn nearly every thing Leslie Jamison has put out, and whereas her writing has matured and adjusted over the course of time, she nonetheless writes a number of the most unimaginable prose. She has a method of writing a sentence that reads like magic. Previously, she has investigated the non-public lives of others, researched writers and different artists who struggled with alcoholism, and explored her personal expertise with sobriety. This time, she’s writing concerning the delivery of her daughter and her divorce from her daughter’s father. 

Splinters seems at Jamison’s splintered identification — as a daughter, mom, spouse, girlfriend, artist, tutorial, author — and the way these many aspects of who she is have knowledgeable her artwork. The memoir is split up into completely different sections, every analyzing a mind-set or a part in Jamison’s life. They construct on each other, giving us a extra full image of Jamison’s lived expertise.

Jamison loses herself in her new daughter, discovering a brand new love of her life whereas concurrently attempting to deal with the disintegration of her marriage. Her divorce is messy and sophisticated, the bitterness lasting years as they each wrestle to determine a solution to co-parent their younger baby. Jamison explores intercourse and relationship, questioning how on earth she will begin over with one other particular person, however attempt once more she does.

I notably loved the audiobook version, which she reads herself. Much of the listening expertise appears like we’re sitting throughout from Jamison at her favourite grungy diner as we take heed to her describe these many aspects of her personhood. Listening to her narrate her story appears like we’re witnessing her verbally course of her expertise of early motherhood and the entire messiness that has entailed.