According to acclaimed author Jane Hamilton, her new book, The Phoebe Variations, is steeped in memories of Oak Park and River Forest.
The book, available Sept. 23, is already creating buzz — included in Oprah Daily’s Best Books of Fall 2025 and earning a starred review in Booklist and positive reviews from the literary holy grails, Kirkus and Publishers Weekly.
For this interview in southern Wisconsin, Hamilton and 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 of Oak Park.
“Writing 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,” Hamilton said.
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.
“I 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,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton grew up surrounded by books. Her family didn’t 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.
Jane Hamilton feeding Babette in her apple orchard. | Provided
“I 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.”
Hamilton’s 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 “Song for A Fifth Child,” about Jane, and her grandmother was a journalist involved in the temperance movement and women’s suffrage.
Hamilton’s 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’s literary magazine.
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.
“After 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’s gift is to make you feel like you’ve been best friends forever — she just showers this radiant energy upon you,” Hamilton said.
Eight years later, The Book of Ruth was selected as the third book for Oprah’s Book Club, which debuted in 1996. Sales of the book exploded from 85,000 copies pre-Oprah to more than one million.
“That 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’m grateful for that. I’ve always just been happy to do the work,” Hamilton said.
Lightning struck again when Hamilton’s second book, A Map of the World, was selected for the Book Club in 1999, five years after it was published.
Hamilton expresses gratitude for Oprah’s 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’s and Barnes & Noble.
Both The Book of Ruth and The Map of the World were made into movies. “Map” 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.
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 “Oak Parky” books. Many of her novels focus on motherhood, domestic relationships and the lives of teenagers.
“Oh my gosh, you put any teenager in a narrative and the whole thing is going to explode. It’s such a time of high tension, particularly with girls, because you feel powerful but you don’t know how to use it. But you know it can affect people,” she said.
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. 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.
As with all her characters, Hamilton treats the girls with great compassion and empathy.
“I 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,” she said, laughing.
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.
“I knew when I married my husband [Bob Willard], I was marrying into a business. It wasn’t an easy decision. But my husband is the best person on the planet. It’s been a privilege to travel through life with him,” she said, with the same generosity she shows her beloved characters.
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