What is the title of your latest release?
THE PHOEBE VARIATIONS
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
Oh dear! The elevator pitch makes me nervous. One sentence to describe what could be a complicated book that has, let’s hope, meaningful and beautiful sentences? (But if you voice that complaint, you sound like a prig!) Okay, I’m prig, and here’s my pitch: Phoebe, senior in high school, has a shattering experience meeting her birth parents, she runs away to the land of boys, things happen in that land, and, furthermore, she has to reckon with the power dynamics of her deepest, most dear friend. (Not great, a C plus maybe, for Elevator Pitch?)
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I set the story in a place very like Oak Park, Illinois, where I grew up. I loved spending time back there, in that leafy, progressive suburb, close to Chicago, home of Earnest Hemingway, and, more recently, Dan Castellaneta, The Voice of Homer Simpson.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
I loved hanging out with her, so much, for the ten years I spent writing this book. She lives in my heart!
What are three words that describe your hero?
Funny, for sure, passive, in a way, fierce, absolutely, lonely, yes, and one more, very musical.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
It can take a remarkably long time to find the real story. Note to self: keep your eye on that crazy house with all the boys in it. Don’t forget that that’s where the action takes place. Also, keep Phoebe’s best friend in just about every frame. That’s where the tension is.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Always editing, always trying to move forward.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Anything from the Hewn Bakery in Evanston, Illinois. It’s worth a visit!
Describe your writing space/office!
My space looks out to my family’s apple orchard. Yes, it’s idyllic! My office, sadly, is currently a mess. The books are falling all over each other. The projects are spilling all over each other. How am I going to clean it out?!!!
Who is an author you admire?
Oh, boy, so many. I loved the debut novel, WORK HORSE, by Caroline Palmer. She is so funny, smart, and at so many turns you will say out loud to the heroine, “DON’T DO IT!!! NOOOOOOO.”
Is there a book that changed your life?
Anything that Patrick Radden Keefe writes rocks my world. SAY NOTHING—ohmygod. LONDON FALLING—OHMYGOD. The book about the Sachlers—…..!
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
I sold a story to Harper’s magazine when I was in my mid-twenties. This wouldn’t happen now. But, I sent the story, it went over the transom, as they used to say, a summer intern read it (who is that person? He or she changed my life!), and passed it up to an editor, who called me, on my birthday! She was a great editor. Helen Rogan. She took time with me, and she published two more stories. I owe my career to that intern and to Helen. (I’ve tried to find the intern, but Harper’s doesn’t have a record of that summer.)
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I don’t care what the genre is. I’ll read anything if I love the sentences.
What’s your favorite movie?
Well, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure is up there. Succession, the series, was a great experience, as was the French series, Le Bureau. I adored Days of Heaven. I wonder if it would hold up, if I saw it now. The Heart is a lonely Hunter, the movie made me cry my eyes out when I was a teenager. So did, more recently, Inside Llewyn Davis.
What is your favorite season?
They all have their virtues. They are all changing dramatically these days. I loved the deep deep cold of Minnesota winters when I was in college, and the bright clear stars in the night sky.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Riding my bike all day.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
It’s dangerous to recommend things. What if the person hates it? I loved Ruth Ozeki’s recent collection of short stories, THE TYPING LADY.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Breakfast.
What do you do when you have free time?
Sleep.
What can readers expect from you next?
A book about two sisters. (How’s that for an elevator pitch!)
THE PHOEBE VARIATIONS by Jane Hamilton
An Oprah Daily Best Book of Fall
An Indie Next Pick for October
A LibraryReads Pick for September
The acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World returns with a stunning coming‑of‑age novel about girls, mothers, and finding one’s way in the world.
Seventeen‑year‑old Phoebe was never interested in her birth family. But on the cusp of her high school graduation, her adoptive mother, Greta, insists on a visit to meet her biological parents and siblings. The encounter is a jolt, a revelation that derails Phoebe.
With the help of her best friend Luna, Phoebe runs away—as far as their friend Patrick O’Connor’s chaotic home, where she hopes to go unnoticed among his thirteen siblings. But when Phoebe asks Patrick to chop off her hip‑length hair, she’s suddenly transformed. Patrick’s older brothers can’t help but notice the striking, Peter Pan–like stranger who has suddenly appeared in their midst.
What starts as an adolescent rebellion soon spirals into a whirlwind of self‑discovery and unexpected connections. As she grapples with her shifting identity and strained relationships, Phoebe must navigate the tumultuous road out of girlhood and chart a new and unknown course.
Women’s Fiction [ Zibby Books, On Sale: October 20, 2026, Paperback, ISBN: 9798991140270 / ]
Buy THE PHOEBE VARIATIONS: Amazon.com | BN.com | Books-A-Million | Indie BookShops | Walmart.com |
About Jane Hamilton
Jane Hamilton is the author of The Book of Ruth, winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for first fiction, and A Map of the World, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and named one of the top ten books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, the Miami Herald, and People. Both The Book of Ruth and A Map of the World have been selections of Oprah’s Book Club. Her following work, The Short History of a Prince, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998, her novel Disobedience was published in 2000, and her last novel When Madeline Was Young was a Washington Post Best Book of 2006. She lives in and writes in an orchard farmhouse in Wisconsin.
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