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Jane Hamilton feeding Babette in her apple orchard. | Provided<\/p>\nAccording to acclaimed author Jane Hamilton, her new book, The Phoebe Variations, is steeped in memories of Oak Park and River Forest.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The book, available Sept. 23, is already creating buzz \u2014 included in Oprah Daily\u2019s Best Books of Fall 2025 and earning a starred review in Booklist and positive reviews from the literary holy grails, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
For this interview in southern Wisconsin, Hamilton\u202fand I sat in the charming cafe that she created as an homage to her mother Ruth, an inveterate collector of art, and discussed her new book, her Oprah moment, and her fond memories\u202fof Oak Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWriting the book had special resonance for me because I loved being back in Oak Park in the 1970s, which is when I came of age. I got to relive some of the feelings I had when I was growing up,\u201d Hamilton said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton lived with four older siblings in a big Victorian on Scoville Avenue, in a block that, according to Hamilton, had 85 children who ran wild, barefoot and cellphone-free at a time when kids could still be feral from morning until their mothers called them home for dinner.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember the towering elms that made arches over the street, and the sound of cicadas in the summer. I felt very close to the natural world, especially when we slept in a screened-in back porch during the summer and sometimes the winter,\u201d Hamilton said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton grew up surrounded by books. Her family didn\u2019t have a television until she was 10 or 11. She credits the librarians at the Oak Park Public Library (OPPL) and Hawthorne School (now the site of Percy Julian Middle School) with encouraging her love of reading.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jane Hamilton feeding Babette in her apple orchard. | Provided<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember Mrs. Dyliss Finch [OPPL librarian] opening a box of books, rooting through it and handing me a book that she said she got for me. It seemed magical at the time that she knew me so well.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s mother, Ruth Hamilton, and her grandmother, Emma Kidd Hulburt, were both prolific writers. Her mother wrote poems, several of which were published in Ladies Home Journal, including \u201cSong for A Fifth Child,\u201d about Jane, and her grandmother was a journalist involved in the temperance movement and women\u2019s suffrage.\u202f\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton\u2019s first forays in writing were done just for herself, in a subversive, private way, which she insists is the best way to start writing. At OPRF, where she graduated in 1975, she wrote poetry and worked on the staff of the Crest, the school\u2019s literary magazine.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Her first novel, The Book of Ruth, published in 1988, won the PEN\/Hemingway Award for best first novel. The book was revered by no less a literary arbiter than Oprah Winfrey, whose staff surprised her by inviting Hamilton to lunch at Harpo Studios. The experience was unforgettable.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the taping of a show, I was planted last in the line to meet her. When I introduced myself, she was so excited and started spontaneously quoting from the book. We talked about books the whole time. Oprah\u2019s gift is to make you feel like you\u2019ve been best friends forever \u2014 she just showers this radiant energy upon you,\u201d Hamilton said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eight years later, The Book of Ruth was selected as the third book for Oprah\u2019s Book Club, which debuted in 1996. Sales of the book exploded from 85,000 copies pre-Oprah to more than one million.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was beyond my wildest dreams. But I was very fortunate to have the Oprah experience several years after the book was published. I already knew that the glare was going to be temporary and I\u2019m grateful for that. I\u2019ve always just been happy to do the work,\u201d Hamilton said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lightning struck again when Hamilton\u2019s second book, A Map of the World, was selected for the Book Club in 1999, five years after it was published.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton expresses gratitude for Oprah\u2019s support and credits her and J.K. Rowling for keeping independent bookstores viable in the 1990s in the face of pressure from behemoths like Border\u2019s and Barnes & Noble.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both The Book of Ruth and The Map of the World were made into movies. \u201cMap\u201d stars noteworthy actors Sigourney Weaver, Julianne Moore and Louise Fletcher. Hamilton and her nephew, a film buff, visited the set in Toronto for a couple days. They made a brief appearance at the end of the movie, albeit walking with their backs to the camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton has written a total of eight books, including The Short History of a Prince and When Madeline Was Young, both of which, like The Phoebe Variations, she refers to as \u201cOak Parky\u201d books. Many of her novels focus on motherhood, domestic relationships and the lives of teenagers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOh my gosh, you put any teenager in a narrative and the whole thing is going to explode. It\u2019s such a time of high tension, particularly with girls, because you feel powerful but you don\u2019t know how to use it. But you know it can affect people,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Phoebe Variations is a coming-of-age story focusing on the intense friendship between two girls and their shifting power dynamic after they reach adulthood.\u00a0 On the cusp of high school graduation, Phoebe faces a disruption in the fragile fabric of her life and takes shelter with a rambunctious family of 14 children, where she assumes she will be unnoticed. Years later, she looks back from the perspective of adulthood on a period of adolescent tumult and self-discovery.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As with all her characters, Hamilton treats the girls with great compassion and empathy.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI loved high school so it was fun to write about girls who also loved high school. I got to relive some of the feelings I had when I was growing up. I intentionally gave Phoebe a complicated and loving deflowering,\u201d she said, laughing.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hamilton left Oak Park during college and, for four decades, has lived and worked in a three-generation family-owned apple orchard in southern Wisconsin. Her son, the fourth generation, is now coming into the fold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew when I married my husband [Bob Willard], I was marrying into a business. It wasn\u2019t an easy decision. But my husband is the best person on the planet. It\u2019s been a privilege to travel through life with him,\u201d she said, with the same generosity she shows her beloved characters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n
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