MixedThe Spectator (UK)Jamison’s prose pulls you in and propels you. She is a master of making you want to keep reading. Yet, the repetitive language in Splinters, which I assume is supposed to echo the repetitiveness of looking after a baby, soon became cloying ... The book is a nervy, almost electrified, diary and confessional of the domestic. Where Jamison writes against herself, she creates a fertile space that alternates between solipsism and self-interrogation. If you are looking for a literary memoir probing the depths of childbirth, love, marriage, divorce and the systems in place that make it difficult for women – especially mothers – to thrive, this may not be the one. But, if you want to hear how these issues are navigated by Leslie Jamison, then you will be hooked.
