Jamison's debut novel is The Gin Closet. "Set in the late 60s," Caroline Leavitt writes, "it's about Tilly Rudolf, who is drinking herself to death in a trailer park. But then her niece Stella shows up and both their lives begin to be impacted. It's raw, graceful, and totally unforgettable...."From Jamison's Q & A with Leavitt:
So much of the book is about Stella’s attempt to save Tilly. Do you think people can ever be saved?The Page 69 Test: The Gin Closet.
Wow. Big question. Hard question. Great question. I do think people can be saved, but I think that saving is never permanent or final, and “saving” never works as a fully transitive verb. Which is to say: saving is always a process—always fragile, tenuous, a structure we daily construct rather than a destination we reach—and it’s not something one person can “do” to another; it must also involve coaxing or reawakening some self-saving impulse in the one being saved.
I’d also say—for the record—that my take on whether saving is possible, or how it might work, is pretty different now than when I wrote the book. Which is interesting for me to think about. I haven’t read the novel since before it was published—probably not for four years or so—and I’d be curious to feel my own reactions if I reread it. It might be a few more years before I’m ready to do that.
What surprised you in the writing of the book?
Well, certainly the fact that it ended up...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue