Leslie Jamison's 'Splinters'
A memoir of divorce and single parenting, and a deft portrait of the kaleidoscopic relationships we all house within these human frames
Hello my loves,
I promised you a recap of Splinters, Leslie Jamison’s memoir of her divorce. I’ll try not to write a term paper here, then again this is my blog and I can do what I want! Jamison is *quite* an adept when it comes to nonfiction. Her collection of essays The Empathy Exams was mentioned by everyone when it came out in 2014, from your best friend the homeless poet to your dentist and your dentist’s dog. It’s hard to believe that was ten years ago. Well, hard to believe and not hard at all. My first child was born in 2014. I am a different person three times over now.
I was viscerally excited to read Splinters. A memoir by anyone who excels lyrically always captivates me. What could be more intoxicating than hard-won truths beautifully told? I also appreciate Jamison’s sense of humor in this book. She is (famously?) engaged in the project of sobriety. (She has written a novel called The Gin Closet and a different book called The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath.) Perhaps because of that, I felt a great deal of heart in these pages. Splinters is funny while interrogating and takes a good look at Jamison’s own motivations for her marriage. And as compelling as the slow, painstaking unraveling of a partnership sometimes is in the world of letters (mea culpa), what I appreciate most in this book is the way its humor surprised me and kept me feeling safe, like I could trust this narrator:
Four years earlier, I'd gone to Oslo for another literary festival, as a thirty-year-old woman invited alongside a slew of middle-aged men, mainly high-profile book critics who made their living judging other people's writing. We all got paid in envelopes of cash. Some envelopes were notably thicker than others, as we got paid per event. Most of the men had been slated for three or four panels, while I was just doing one: a conversation with the only other female participant. Our event was called “The Strength to Be Kind.” I thought of making a little joke on stage saying they should have called it “The Strength to Be Paid Less and Still Be Kind.”
That one—the strength to be paid less and STILL be kind—got me good. Perhaps one of the things I liked about this book was that Jamison has succeeded in more traditional spaces - Harvard, Iowa, Columbia - but never guards those places jealously, keeping them all to herself. In fact, in this book, she refers to someone she dates as “the tumbleweed.” There is something both self-protective and gleeful about referring, in the account of your life, to a living, breathing person with a dismissive nickname. I also appreciate how Jamison doesn’t shy away from throwing herself under buses, picking her feelings apart and making fun of herself from time to time, in a way that lets us stay close to her:
“When the tumbleweed finished his gigs in Europe, he would fly to New York. It would be the first time we’d seen each other since that dinner . . . . I took three trains to meet him, whisking through the darkness while my earbuds pulsed with the music I loved that summer, the sadcore dream pop where subtlety went to die. My life was barely my own anymore; I shared custody of all my feelings with Spotify.”
That line - I shared custody of all my feelings with Spotify - jumped up from my reading and smacked me with delight. Perhaps it felt so satisfying, too, because Jamison shares a daughter with her ex. Their navigation of shared custody, and Jamison’s heartbreak over it, is one of the themes in the book. But to name your dependency on playlists, especially in the aftermath of a breakup, felt divine to me.
I dog-eared my library copy so many times, someone should call my mother (you can’t treat public property like that!!). Without quoting every stream or theme in this book, I will say I enjoyed Jamison’s portrait of parenting. She writes about her loneliness not seeing other adults during the pandemic, reminding me how differently the pandemic went for others than for little ole introvert me. Barring the lack of a break for either my partner or me, a lot of my pandemic months contained thoughts like: I don’t have to get dressed or drag my kids to school? I have all the time I need to make meals and walk in the woods as a family? Sign me up! At the same time, I had a partner at home to help with the kids, we had income, could work online, and I never felt so scared that hitting Meijer for groceries was beyond my reach (let’s be honest, is Meijer EVER beyond Kara’s reach???)
Re: that sobriety trajectory I mentioned above, and the arc of parenting, here’s another passage from Splinters. Of her daughter, Jamison writes:
She loved to sort the world into mama things and baby things: mama fox and baby fox; mama pear and baby pear; mama stick and baby stick. In this way, she was making sure that everything in the world was getting taken care of. . . .
My notion of divinity was gradually turning its gaze away from the appraising, tally-keeping, pseudo-father in the sky who would give me enough gold stars if I did enough good things, and toward the mother who’d been here all along—with less patience for my performance and more patience for everything else. I was living toward joy that was less about earning, and more about ambush. A joy you might call grace.
I mean, YES. Yes to mother energy and acceptance of self, sans performance reviews. DEFINITELY sign me up for that.
Relatedly, I spilled half a cup of copy while typing up that passage. If the library doesn’t ding me for my treatment of this book, that will indeed be undeserved grace.
Finally, I downloaded this seal from Beth Spencer’s Introvert Drawing Club because what’s not to love about both the seal and the TITLE of that newsletter?! I don’t think anyone in their right mind would think my writing is AI generated because why would talking about all the ways you evade your responsibilities be profitable (unless you are me who says WHY NOT!) but this and all Under a Spell posts are made with human intelligence (and slow-burning mania).
And now, for my finale, I’m sending you garden tuffets, morning bunnies, minced ginger, and memoirs and essays and smart, grounded hope. Be safe out there, be safe inside.
XOXOXO
Kara
Thanks for this special "book report" edition of UaS. Seriously, appreciate your thoughtful excerpting of gems from Jamison's memoir. Her prose is lyrical. Also, this introvert really thrilled at the mandatory slow-down and homebodying of the early pandemic (said from the privilege of not having had to work on front lines, nor of having gotten sick/had a loved one seriously sick). And I can definitely fall into a weird sort of euphoric recall/nostalgia in thinking about those "good ol' bad days."
Lol this dude was like "Plants are still like people... good enough"