The Lost Chapters: Finding Recovery and Renewal One Book at a Time

by Leslie Schwartz

Leslie Schwartz's powerful, skillfully woven memoir of redemption and reading, as told through the list of books she read as she served a 90 day jail sentence

In 2014, award-winning novelist Leslie Schwartz was sentenced to 90 days in county jail for a DUI and battery of an officer of the law. It was the most harrowing and holy experience of her life.

Leslie served her time at the tail end of a 414-day relapse into alcohol addiction after more than a decade of sobriety. From August 4, 2013 to September 23, 2014, she remembers almost nothing--a knife incident, some arrests (but not all of them), visits to hospitals and rehab, and the loss of friends and jobs. The official body count, blessedly, was zero, but the damage she inflicted upon her friends, her husband and teenage daughter, and herself was nearly impossible to fathom.

Incarceration might have ruined her, if not for the stories that comforted her while she was locked up--both the artful tales in the books she read while there, and, more immediately, the stories of her fellow inmates. With classics like Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome to contemporary accounts like Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken, Schwartz's reading list is woven together with visceral recollections of her daily humiliations faced in the prison system. Through the stories of others--whether rendered on the page or whispered in a jail cell-- she learned powerful lessons about how to banish shame, use guilt for good, level her grief, and find the lost joy and magic of her astonishing life.

Told in vivid, unforgettable prose, The Lost Chapters uncovers the nature of shame, rage, and love, and how instruments of change and redemption come from the unlikeliest of places.

Genres: Memoir, Books About Books, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, Addiction, Crime

272 pages, Hardcover

First published July 10, 2018

About the author

Librarian Note: there is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Diane S ☔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible,I was thoroughly captivated by this raw and honest accounting of z very bad time in this authors life. After more than a decade of sobriety, she has a relapse of drug and alcohol use that lasts for 414 days. She is in author, a wife and mother, not at all representative of the stereotypical user. She blacks out, doesn't remember much from those days, not the hurt the inflicted on her friends, family, something in which she has a hard time forgiving herself. She hits bottom, when she gets a DUI, the officers claiming she assaulted them during her arrest, and she is sentenced to ninth days in a Los Angeles jail.

She has plenty of time to come to terms with the harm she has caused to those she loves, and she will learn plenty about the reality of jail. Books become her lifeline, though she only allowed to receive three a week, directly from Amazon, these become her lifeline. She also finds there are few like herself, white, economically stable, the women are mostly poor, different ethnicities, prostitutes and the like. The cruelty of the guards, the constant mind games played, it will not be the women she fears, but those in charge. Those with the power. The relationships she makes in jdil, the stories of their lives that she gets to know, were my favorite parts of the book. The most touching. Also, of course the books she chooses to read.

Her story is raw, honest, she is hard on herself, and hard on a system that impridons the poor, the mentally I'll and the already abused. It is hard not to be affected by her story and those of the other women. I have a few other books I am following up with this one, Damnation Island: Poor, Sick, Mad, & Criminal in 19th-Century New York and American Jail.

"I have time to think about things now. To think about the way a book feels in my hand, or tastes or sounds. I have never loved so hard and with such fidelity and reciprocation. Books can break your heart, but they never leave you."

"It still made me rage, recalling the sbuse of power. But in jail i grasped a bigger truth, a more painful reality. Now I understood that much of the time, especially where addicts and the mentally I'll and the poor are concerned, justice isn't justice, it's personal. This explained why 99% of the people inside are people of color. The realization sliced me open. Sometimes knowledge is like being carved in half."

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook ....( I own this)....is read by the author: Leslie Schwartz.

A few months back a Goodreads friend, Esther, sent me this book recommendation. She only sends me recommendations when she is sure it’s a strong impactful book - definitely worthy of my time. I bought it- trusted her. I didn’t need to know much more. But there were a couple of things that stayed with me from her review that stayed with me - and I wholeheartedly agree.
.....”Leslie’s book nails the prison system, but she does so without a whine”.
.....”It is a brave book written by a woman who has a sharp sense of justice and an ability to capture things about prison life that perhaps the average person does not now. There is a lot packed into the time she spent with different people”.
.....”Leslie Schwartz is a storyteller, and handles themes of shame, grief, joy, and sorrow, injustice, with skill”.

THANK YOU ESTHER....I have a few people I plan to share this with!

After I knew I was going to read this book - anyway - I was inspired again by Diane S’s review. Diane’s entire review is outstanding. I recommend reading it - if you haven’t already. Besides including a couple of powerful excerpts - it’s clear this memoir affected her as it did me.
Diane says:
.....”Her story Is raw, honest, she is hard on herself, and hard on a system that impridons the poor, the mentally ill, and the already abused. It is hard not to be affected by her story and those of other women”. THANK YOU DIANE!

I thought this was a totally engaging memoir. And like Diane said - Leslie worked really HARD. She didn’t sit back and feel sorry for herself. She ‘described’ how miserable the conditions were and how hard it was for her to tolerate - but that’s different from indulging in self pity or giving up on herself. I wouldn’t expect her to be perfect - but honestly Leslie DID THE WORK. SHE IS NOT GOING BACK TO PRISON - I’D BET MY ASS SHE WILL NEVER REPEAT HER CRIMES. She continues to make amends- has taken full responsibility for the damage she caused others and actions of forgiveness. What more can we possibly ask from
any human being?

I could talk about this book for hours - I think it would be an excellent book club discussion. It would for me. It’s packed filled with book treats too. For example - when Leslie was sharing about the book “A Tale For A Time Being”, by Ruth Ozeki .... I was in complete heaven. I love that book - Leslie critiqued it so beautifully applied certain parts to her life behind bars.

To Leslie .... if she reads these things: unlike you - I’m not a writer - I’m clear this review doesn’t come close to doing justice to how phenomenal your memoir is. It was informative - and very touching from your pure humanity - ( your education and talents made your book really wonderful to read/ listen to. You CAN WRITE!!!!
And your voice is so easy to be with. Loved listening to you speak. I haven’t read any other books you‘ve written....but you have me interested now.

I’m inspired! I’d love to see many my friends read this book so we can discuss it together.

[Jenna · Rating 3 out of 5]

To my mind, this little memoir was really akin to three books in one, which could be both a strength and a weakness.

Its FIRST function was to be a "book about books and reading" kind of book. I know there are a lot of folks who love these; I'll admit they're not my fave. However, this book offered up an interesting take on the genre: You get a lot of time when you’re doing time, so within the realm of your control, on what specific reading will you spend that time?

This premise resonated with me to the extent that it was probably the reason I bought the book in the first place (in addition to the awesome trompe l'oeil cover). Nearly immediately upon completing a book, I can typically be seen wandering up and down the stairs of my house, restlessly shuffling a pile of books in my arms like a sad little library ghost. This can go on for a good while. Rarely do I ever know exactly what book I want – or need – to read next. I MIGHT know, approximately, which six-ish books I want to read next, and even that changes per the hour and day. So imagine choosing in advance – if you even had the luxury of loved ones who could make your Amazon wish list a reality per the stringent mail requirements of our correctional system – the books you would like to have with you IN JAIL. I can barely structure my reading choices effectively around the constraints of vacation packing or the shortened library “hotlist” loan period, much less a prison sentence.

So the author spends some time exploring her thought process behind developing her incarceration reading list, and then she discusses in depth a few of the books that particularly impacted her relative to her incarceration and the alcohol addiction that preceded it. I appreciated hearing how mindfully and deliberately she read while in jail: she reads uber slowly, smells the pages, etc., both to savor the words and to relish the physical object. And of course, we can all empathize when guards are ridiculing her books or holding them hostage within view as she pines away. However, the book gradually drifted away from this area of focus as the author’s attention was increasingly drawn toward other things – such as, you know, being in jail, and being with other people who are also in jail. I was more interested in this new focus, but the shift seemed a bit sloppy and not cohesive. Like, at the beginning you have detailed exegeses of entire texts, and then that pretty much fades away. As it stands, I don’t know if there will be enough of the “books about books” factor to satisfy readers who are seeking a book of this sort, since books in this vein are not really my thing anyway.

So as the book progresses, the author still does some reading and writing, including with other inmates, but she’s also increasingly engrossed in other activities such as teaching yoga, attending life skills classes, and gardening in Dixie cups. This brings us toward the SECOND function of this book, which is to document the challenges, boredom, and the undignified, not-rehabilitative conditions of incarcerated life she observed, and to illuminate the lives of the incarcerated women she met. In particular, she makes an effort to highlight social injustices that take place within the jail setting, especially at the hands of the guards and law enforcement personnel, whom the author almost universally describes as despicably verbally/emotionally and even physically abusive. (For instance, she reports guards constantly call the inmates stupid and derisively sneer things like “See you back here soon!” when inmates are discharged.). She also endeavors to make an accounting of social justice issues that drive the disproportionate incarceration of people of color, people who have experienced poverty and violence or abuse, and people with addiction and other mental health conditions.

I respected the author’s well-intentioned effort to get to know her fellow inmates and to tell their stories. This would have easily been my favorite part of my book except for that, although the author earnestly attempts to acknowledge her own significant privilege (as a wealthy, educated white woman author/academic with a beautiful California home complete w/ meditation garden and loyal friends and husband whose handsomeness is oft-referenced), she still has some blind spots. In one scene that really stuck with me, she is immediately hateful, judgmental and aggressively, unrepentantly hostile toward another inmate who doesn’t seem to be significantly more offensive than any other inmate the author encounters but whom, like the author, is a white woman and an addict. (But presumably lacking the kind of social supports and resources the author enjoys, as we know this inmate’s children, UNLIKE the author’s, were taken by social services as a result of her addiction.) I was like, am I not supposed to see this as extreme self-loathing/projection? – because I don’t get that a meth addict somehow deserves less empathy than an ETOH addict.

Also, for someone with a meditation practice complete with home Zen garden, the author dedicates an awful lot of energy to complaining about people who smell in jail. I get it: washing is good. However, there are probably many legitimate risk factors impeding personal hygiene in jail, including safety or privacy concerns and fear; mental health concerns like sexual trauma, depression, or serious mental illness; and the cleanliness and conditions of the washing facilities themselves. (The author also seemed weirdly prudish about anything to do with vaginas in jail, as a discussion topic or as a general presence, while at the same time dedicating a lot of space to the discussion of her disgust and annoyance around this – which I found confusing.) I wished the author had been able to work a bit harder to balance out her MRSA hypochondria with some more empathy. In any case, I appreciate the author’s effort and honesty, and I know the author isn’t responsible for her limitations in telling about other people’s stories – she deserves props for making the effort – but still: Theirs were the stories I really wanted to hear. This book serves as a good reminder that there is really no replacement for "Own Voices" stories, which are incredibly important.

Where the author probably most succeeds in my view is in the THIRD function of this book as an addiction and recovery memoir. Any potential failings I’ve identified in the book’s first and second functions have merit and make sense in the context of this book as someone actively making an effort to transform a punishment into an opportunity for self-improvement. The author does not sit around waiting for rehabilitative, therapeutic services that will never be served up to her by the broken system she describes; instead, she creates her own healing and accountability program, DIY-style. She works really hard in reflecting on back on the origins, consequences, and collateral impacts of her addiction and contemplating, preparing for, and actively making change. It’s okay that she’s not perfectly maintaining just yet – she’s very upfront that she’s still changing. And she’s honest, earnest, dedicated, and importantly, remains internally motivated in that effort, which is a significantly responsible achievement for anyone coping with the oppressive, depressive conditions of incarceration. (I should also mention that I listened to the audiobook and the author does a fantastically sincere, expressive, and passionate job reading her own work, in which this quality really comes across.)

[Julie Ehlers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm somewhere between 2 and 3 stars so I'll be nice and round up. I find that I don't have the energy to say much about this book. Sometimes I enjoyed Leslie Schwartz's insights, and sometimes she drove me up a wall. Sometimes I was entertained and sometimes I was bored. This isn't a terrible book, but I wouldn't actually recommend it to anyone, not with all the other, better books out there. But, you know, read the description and decide for yourself whether you want to try it. Whatever.

[Esther Bradley-detally · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last week I went to a reading specifically to hear Leslie Schwartz; i may have read previous books, but the words, "memoir, addiction, prison," all are themes in my life. I write to someone who was abused since childhood and finally snapped and killed him; i am a writer, but memoirs call to me; i value the authentic and also a favorite theme is to view man's humanity and inhumanity, two rivers, running side by side. I see the ordinary person filled with nobility. That would naturally place me in the 5th row of a reading session with Leslie Schwartz and listening to an excerpt from The Lost Chapters.

Her book nails the prison system, but she does so without a whine; addiction has decimated many generations, at least in my house, but she faces hers. It is a brave book written by a woman who has a sharp sense of justice and an ability to capture things about prison life that perhaps the average person does not know. There is a lot packed into the time she spent with different people.

Leslie Schwartz is a story teller, and handles themes of shame, grief, joy, sorrow, injustice with skill. Her narrative form impacts strongly and creates more understanding of prison life and addiction than say an academic treatise; that is a bias of mine. She's never above anyone in status and sees personhood in all people. I bought the book; Will share. Now to see about her other books

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 2014, novelist and writing teacher Leslie Schwartz (Angels Crest) was arrested for drunk driving and sentenced to 90 days in the overcrowded Los Angeles County jail. She'd been sober for at least a decade when she relapsed into drug and alcohol addiction for more than a year. By the time she accepted a plea bargain to serve six weeks, she was six months sober. "The experience of being caged was soul crushing," she writes. "Living through this experience exposed me to new levels of human cruelty." During her incarceration, she was allowed to read 21 books. "Each taught me what I needed to learn at the moment," she writes.

Reading brings Schwartz hope and transforms her thinking about her fortitude, self-worth and bravery. When she and some of the other prisoners read their books aloud to each other, friendships are forged. "A new knowledge took shape," she writes, "a deeper peeling back of my complacency, ushered in on the spines of our books." Among the books that give her insight about her life and choices are Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings", Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See", Laura Hillenbrand's "Unbroken", Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome" and especially Ruth Ozeki's "A Tale for the Time Being"--"Quite literally I knew after having read it I was a different person."

Schwartz's razor-sharp observations on life behind bars, the prison system and the women caught in an endless cycle of abuse, addiction and incarceration is captivating and tremendously moving. Her sobering tale is beautifully told. -

Novelist Leslie Schwartz writes about serving time in jail and finding solace and strength from fellow inmates and 21 books.

[brettlikesbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

finding moments of hope and humanity in the midst of the despair of incarceration + beautifully poetic descriptions of jail, recovery, her fellow inmates, and the books that were her saving grace
📚
“When the books arrive, it’s better than anything I have ever known. Better than sex. Better than drugs or alcohol. Better than recovery. Better than daytime. Better than the moon. It is better than free samples at the mall...Each word fills my mouth. A vowel is confection: flan or frosting. Consonants are piquant and crunchy: sauerkraut. Sometimes the words crawl up my spine...I have time to think about these things. To think about the way a book feels in my hand, or tastes, or sounds. I have never loved so hard and with such fidelity and reciprocation. Books can break your heart, but they never leave you.”
📚
thank you so much @duttonbooks for sending it to me! 😘
📚
instagram book reviews @brettlikesbooks

[Kayla Bramante · Rating 5 out of 5]

While serving time in Los Angeles county jail, Leslie gracefully takes us through the injustice in the world and the power of surrender, friendship, and faith. I caught myself not wanting to imagine the scenes Leslie described, hating the judicial system, cringing at the places alcoholism and addiction takes people, and pissed at the treatment of inmates. I know this is an important book because it questioned my beliefs, my assumptions, and my efforts to make the world a more just place. Thank you Leslie for this important memoir and for opening your soul to the reader.

[Sarah BB · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book but for some reason I didn't really. I liked parts of it but overall did not really care for it. Which I feel bad for because its a memoir. This might be due to the fact that I read a book about a man who was on death row for 15 years for a crime he did not commit and then I read this book. So I think I was comparing the two.

Anywho, it is not that long of a book, so give it a try.

[Kathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to audiobook.

[Tiffany · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's so tough rating a memoir fairly. I enjoyed the audiobook, which is narrated by the author and something I love when authors narrate their own work! Especially if the work is personal and they are able to combine their own inflections with their experiences.

With that being said, my favorite part of the audiobook was the last hour - hour and a half. So that's maybe the final less than third of the book?

It's a quick read/listen but I just felt like something was missing. Like I said, it's hard to critique a memoir.

[Rita Ciresi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love books about reading books, but Lost Chapters differs from some of my favorites (Ex Libris, My Life With Bob, The Library Book). The author, sentenced to jail for DUI, is reading within prison. The problem with reading about someone reading behind bars is that you feel as if you are in jail yourself. I could only read a chapter at a time, as the book was so disturbing. This memoir is less about reading and redemption, and more about the harsh conditions of jail, and the need for prisoners to have access to quality reading material.

[Andrew Schrader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic memoir. Seriously, go read this book.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

memoir of her relapse [culminating in being sent to prison in the wake of a DUI offense] and recovery, mixed with first-person observations of being in prison, with heavy emphasis on what she chose to read while doing time.

She's a good writer, and I think many people would find this book engaging, but I'm afraid I'm not one of them. We have mostly different reading tastes, and I'm coming around to the view that reading about someone else's experience of reading a novel I haven't read is a little too removed from the action and gets old. I've read quite a few addiction/recovery stories, so that part wasn't news to me either. The prison aspect was the most informative, but didn't save the book from being overall a slog for me.

[Liz Pardey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author, as a result of a 'relapse' into drugs and alcohol, has been sentenced to 90 days in a state prison . Ms Schwartz is an older, educated white woman in a sea of young blacks and Latinos. She enters having requested that her husband send her three books of her choosing every couple of weeks. She makes friends and hopefully influences some other lives as much as her life is changed. Meanwhile she reads and reflects on her books (not too thank heavens) and learns to play the system. Thought provoking, emotional, gripping.

[Glennie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. An inside look at serving time in a women's prison, like I've never read before.

One quote:

"Defeat is not the end. It is, she (Mary Oliver) seems to say, only the beginning. There is another freedom on the other side. Literal poverty, isolation, addiction and incarceration are not crimes. The crime is giving up on our personal liberty. We must bleed before we find freedom. "

[susan kj]

In a memoir Schwartz notes “Truth is malleable in the retelling.“ I was disappointed that in finding reading as her redemption she rarely mentions the unconscionable crime of DWI and focuses more on herself as a victim of addiction. I did put 3 suggestions on my list: Ethan Frome, Woman Warrior, and Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart.

[Al Menaster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly outstanding book. It's the true story of the author's 37 days in L.A. County jail. We know what's happening in jail, but we really don't. This is riveting, intense, and hard to read. But it's real.

[Cathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

She was miserable, unhappy and constipated. But after 37 days she got to return to her beautiful home and family. Class, race, wealth made her luckier than the rest.

[Rita Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be an excellent memoir about addiction, recovery, incarceration, the social structure of our country, and spirituality. Leslie Schwartz wove these themes together through telling her own story of addiction and recovery. A self-described wealthy white woman who appeared to have everything could not hold off the scourge of addiction. She discussed her family of origin, and it seems clear she carried a heavy genetic vulnerability for addiction. She eventually finds herself in jail, serving a relatively short sentence for a DUI and assault on a police officer. She uses this time to understand herself better, and to work on maintaining her sobriety. One of her tools for recovery was reading-she arranged to have self-selected books sent to her during her time behind bars. But this book is not only about understanding herself better, and accepting responsibility for her actions. She also talks about the other women she met while incarcerated. "Through the stories of others-whether rendered on the page or whispered in a jail cell-she learned powerful lessons about how to banish shame, use guilt for good, level her grief, and find the lost joy and magic of her astonishing life." (from the book jacket).

[Ocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

while there are some things about this book that annoyed or upset me, i think it's an important message. i enjoyed it partially because i've spent many years mailing books to people inside and it's nice to get some perspective on how meaningful reading can be while in prison. the themes of acceptance and surrender are things i really needed to hear. the author can be frustrating and i really dislike the way she talks about other women, esp. butches. but i was able to power through that and get to the point of the narrative--and it was a good point indeed.
also STFU to the reviewers (most of whom, i'm assuming, have never seen the inside of a jail in their lives) complaining BUt sHe OnLy SeRVeD 37 dAys wHo CaReS? literally the whole POINT of this book (one of the many) is that time is different on the inside. 37 days is definitely enough to change one's perspective forever. and yes it's unfair that she got a shorter sentence than many others due to her multiple privileges, but come on! you'd take the shorter sentence too! the fault lies not with the individual but with the system here. if you don't like it, work towards abolition, or donate money to those who do.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this book on my TBR list for quite a while. I requested it from the public library and was quite caught up in Leslie's story. I can't imagine being sentenced to 90 days in the Los Angeles County Jail but her account of her "friendships" and hardships made my heart ache for the other prisoners who had no real release date.
The books that were sent to her were a mixed bag of recovery books as well as classics and as she read (really devoured) them, they were necessary to get her through this heartaching time. My hope is that she stayed in recovery and was able to rebuilt her damaged relationships after her release.

[Skye · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a well-written, self-disclosing memoir about the damage, losses, and grief of addition. The author goes to jail for 37 days on a DUI charge. She has deep awakenings there, and also gives a damning view of our criminal justice system and the blatant cruelty toward people of color. The author is allowed to receive three books a week if they come from Amazon (new, untouched, can’t have drugs in them) and these books help save her. I have no doubt that Schwartz is sober for life, one day at a time.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars of 5. I liked this more than I expected when I first started it. I was very interested in a woman in prison for DUI's perspective on the books she read while locked up and found the details of the prison life to be distracting. I realize this is unfair. As I read, I was more ready to listen to the whole story of her circumstances and the environment and found it thought provoking for more than just her thoughts on literature.

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir built around books can be clunky but this one worked for me, although that device was definitely secondary to her story. Books can inspire and reach places in me that are profound and lasting and I think this is one of them. Rather than tell you about the book, I will share how deeply moving, inspiring, sad, and LOVING I found it. The humanity of the women caught in my throat. I wish Leslie and the women she encountered on her journey well in their recoveries.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 I found the parts of this memoir concerning the relationships between the author and the women she met in prison to be the most interesting and strongest parts of this memoir. The connections she tries to make between the literature she read while incarcerated and her own experiences are less successful.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sent to jail for drunk driving, a writer learns important life lessons from her situation, her fellow inmates and from books that she's ordered for her incarceration. Some horrifying stories about our justice system, and the way that prisons treat people, but also about the author's own experiences. very compelling, though perhaps a little too spiritual.

[Amy Fish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the author’s approach - she interviewed people about what she was like during her “slip” from sobriety. She wove the stories into a cohesive narrative that really worked. I also thought the jail scenes were excellent - honesty shines through. Thank you for sharing this story with your readers.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book. Reading about her experiences behind bars, and what she took away from her time, was fascinating to me. I’ve always heard about incarceration from the people in power to do so. I learned a lot about losing one’s self, and loss of all power. This was a true eye-opener!

[Tracy Sherrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book but at times the things she viewed as major issues or burdens/problems are nothing compared to what others have gone through. 37 days jail time. But there were some good insights and thought provoking narrative.