Order of Leslie Jamison Books

Leslie Jamison is an American author and teacher who is perhaps best know for her books The Gin Closet and The Recovering. In addition to writing, Jamison works at Columbia University in the MFA program where she directs the non-fiction concentration as well as leads the Marian House Project.

Leslie was born in Washington, DC, but grew up in Los Angeles, California which is quit ea big difference. She lived all over after that with stops in Brooklyn, Iowa, New Haven, and Nicaragua. She currently lives in Brooklyn with her family. Jamison has also worked as a columnist for the New York Times Book Review in the past.

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

If You Like Leslie Jamison Books, You’ll Love…

• Alexander Chee
• Roxanne Gay
• Reecca Makkai

The Gin Closet was Jamison’s novel about three generations of women and the inescapable brutality of love. The book tells the unique story of Tilly who leaves home hoping to find some pure souls, but ending up with nothing but bad habits. Thirty years later she has no family and is about to drink herself to death when he niece Stella shows up on her doorstep. Stella has been living her own life and feeling unfulfilled when the world brings her to her aunt. The two women form a strange relationship with powerful intimacy and addictions. This book is an unflinching tale of sex, love, and power.

Jamison followed that book with The Recovering. This is a rather powerful book about recovering from addition. Part memoir, part reporting, part literary criticism and part cultural history, this book is a deeply personal and a seamless blend of genre. This book combines her own addiction stories with those of others while examining our own expectations about what recovery stories mean to us and how we react when they fail us.