Amanda Palmer Instagram – MEMOIR OF THE YEAR: “Splinters” Leslie Jamison’s writing is so honest it should be illegal. It is rare that I look forward so much to reading a book and am not only NOT disappointed, but floored by how brutally good it is. Bestseller Leslie Jamison came across my radar in 2018, when “The Recovering” caught my eye. I was prepping “There Will Be No Intermission”, my own brutal memoir of an album. I was totally riveted by her writing voice. So poetic, so mundane, so radically honest. I felt like she’d invited me into the most private, dirty underwear drawer of her heart. In “The Recovering” she tangles with her eating disorder history, a drinking problem, her twisted relationship patterns…and much like “Eat Pray Love” (FIE!!, it’s a classic), she winds up at the end with a nice guy. Yay Happy End! Her life is nice and sober and good! BUT WAIT. Six years later, we get part two. After reading “The Recovering” I tracked her down (easy, she lives in NYC). We managed to have a dinner together. She looked like she was in a state of shock. She’d just had a baby, and her marriage was collapsing. Turns out she WAS in a state of shock. Shortly after the book went huge, she gave birth to her first kid, and within months, she left Mr. Babydaddy. She was drowning in the thick of breastfeeding an infant while divorcing a patner AND while promoting her book on the road and…BOOM. Covid hits. She was locked alone in a room with a baby, a broken marriage, and no lifejacket. Splinters is her record of what it feels like when EVERYTHING breaks and you’re holding a kid in your arms. I’ve never felt SO SEEN by a book. Entire passages – her attempts to co-parent with compassion, her struggle with ego, her mash of love affairs (including a hilarious one with a touring musician referred to only as “The Tumbleweed”) – might has well have been cut-and-pasted from my life. She’s a master dot-connector; the swirl of art, conversations and news ALL go in the soup. Leslie and I will be in conversation June 1st @gravesidevariety in collab with the @goldennotebookbookstore (there’s 20 tickets left!); I’ll be filming/transcribing for patrons only, so join. 📸 @markostow