Caroline Leavitt

Caroline Leavitt – Life, Career & Memorable Quotes

Dive into the life and work of American novelist Caroline Leavitt — her biography, major works, themes, and memorable quotes that reflect her literary style and worldview.

Introduction

Caroline Leavitt is an American novelist known for her emotionally rich, character-driven stories about love, loss, identity, and the complexities of human relationships. Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow, both of which garnered critical acclaim and developed a dedicated readership.

Leavitt’s writing is celebrated for its psychological depth, intimate voice, explorations of grief and redemption, and her ability to probe what it means to rebuild after trauma.

Early Life & Background

Little is publicly documented about Caroline Leavitt’s early childhood and formative years. What is known:

• She grew up in Waltham, Massachusetts before later relocating to Hoboken, New Jersey.

• She is married to Jeff Tamarkin, a music journalist and author, and they have a son who works in acting/writing.

• Leavitt’s Jewish identity has figured into her personal narrative and occasionally into her public reflections.

Though she does not have a widely publicized academic pedigree (e.g. she is not always described as holding a famous MFA), her commitment to craft, perseverance, and literary engagement have been central to her career.

Literary Career & Achievements

Early and Breakthrough Novels

Caroline Leavitt has published numerous novels over the years. Some of her notable titles are:

• Living Other Lives (1995) — an early work dealing with grief and starting again.

• Girls in Trouble

• Pictures of You

• Is This Tomorrow

• Cruel Beautiful World

• With or Without You

• Days of Wonder

• Meeting Rozzy Halfway, Into Thin Air, The Wrong Sister, Family, Lifelines, Jealousies

Pictures of You and Is This Tomorrow are among her more recognized works; they have been listed among “best books of the year” by various outlets.

She holds a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction and has received honorable mention in the Goldenberg Fiction Prize. Nickelodeon Screenwriting Awards and Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

In addition to her novels, Leavitt has written essays and book criticism. She has contributed to The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, People, Redbook, Parenting, Psychology Today, and New York Magazine.

Themes & Style

Caroline Leavitt’s work is known for:

• Emotional intensity & authenticity: She often writes about characters grappling with heartbreak, loss, secrets, second chances, and the complexity of love.

• Inner lives and psychological exploration: Her characters frequently carry internal ghosts or burdens, and much of her narrative tension is inner rather than external.

• Focus on relationships and identity: Romantic relationships, family bonds, adoption, and identity (who we are vs. who we feel we must become) recur in her stories.

• Reconstruction after trauma: Many of her plots center on characters trying to rebuild after a life-shattering event or confronting past wounds.

• Intimate, accessible voice: Her prose tends to be direct, emotionally resonant, and grounded in real feeling rather than high literary abstraction.

She has also spoken about how rewriting is central to her process: “I love rewriting because that is where and how you discover the story. It’s like you have this skeleton, and you get to put flesh on it and hair and clothes …”

Notable Quotes

Caroline Leavitt has spoken and written many memorable lines that reflect her philosophy about writing, life, love, and identity. Here are a selection:

“Writers are magpies, and we collect details about people and we use them for fictional characters.”

“Do what you love. Live fearlessly and take risks. Don’t take no for an answer from anyone — go ahead and prove the naysayers wrong. Believe that anything can be possible.”

“The way to get free of pain is to dive down into it. To acknowledge it.”

“People love stories. They need stories.”

“Never be with anyone you couldn't imagine yourself being able to live without.”

“Everyone thinks that a new place or a new identity will jumpstart a new life.”

“Open adoption, when it works, is fabulous. But when it goes wrong, it’s so traumatizing for everybody.”

“I was a bookworm who aced every test — until third grade, when my teacher handed out a pop quiz about Jesus and the Apostles.”

“A lot of people hurl themselves into relationships to lose themselves, but I think the best relationships help us to be more ourselves, to bring forth our best selves.”

“I think I became a writer because of my love of stories and an inability to stop asking, ‘What if?’”

These quotes show her introspective, courageous, and relational sensibility.

Lessons & Takeaways

From Caroline Leavitt’s life and work, readers and aspiring writers can draw several meaningful lessons:

1. Courage in vulnerability
   Leavitt’s stories don’t shy from pain, mistakes, grief, and the messy parts of love. She shows that vulnerability can be powerful, not weakness.

2. Rewrite to discover
   Her emphasis on rewriting underlines that initial drafts are scaffolding—and true insight often comes through revision.

3. Stories are essential
   Her belief that "people need stories" reflects the idea that narrative helps us make sense of emotional experience and connect across difference.

4. Persist through doubt
   Leavitt’s journey—facing skepticism, rejections, life challenges—underscores the perseverance needed in a writing career.

5. Embrace complexity in relationships
   Her characters rarely fit into simple archetypes; love can be flawed, redemptive, destructive, and hopeful all at once.

6. Reinvention is internal, not just external
   Her remark about new places and identities suggests that change must come from within, not simply from relocating or rebranding.