Splinters by Leslie Jameson

I have to say that this on a number of levels reads more like fiction than a memoir. There is so much in the way over overblown about it that it doesn't quite fit for me. The voice is perceptive and the writing is excellent, but it is so up close that if I had written it I would hope that my editor would have taken me aside and ask if I was sure that I wanted something this rough and raw to be put out into the public eye. The author recounts the birth of her daughter, the dissolution of her marriage, and the early days of single parenthood; the result is a captivating story about the all encompassing, sometimes tedious capacity of small children to ensnare time--and in this case the child sucks all the air out of the room. Mom is unable to give much of anything of her self beyond what she gives to her child, and there is not much else left for anyone else. If I wasn't yet a parent this would frighten the hell out of me, the loss of your senses in the bottomless need that consumes the author once she becomes a parent. It is well written, to be sure, but I wanted another degree of separation, some perspective that maybe it wasn't quite so, and I wasn't getting it from this.