Jardine Libaire is a graduate of Skidmore College and the University of Michigan MFA program. White Fur is her second novel. She lives in Austin, Texas.From Libaire's Q&A with Kristina Perkins at Midwestern Gothic:
KP: White Fur embraces the gritty, the raw, and the heavy, discussing themes such as drug use, mental disorder, racism, and poverty. When conceiving your plot and characters, how do you find balance—in the form of hope, love, or growth—within this heaviness?Visit Jardine Libaire's website.
JL: There were times when I was writing White Fur when the balance was off, it was too negative, and I have to admit, it felt grim, icky, to be involved. It became a process not unlike some sort of self-care to recognize that this imbalance was happening, and, as in life, to seek out the positive. And that rhythm of ups and downs is woven into the book itself because of that process.
In life, I’m often overwhelmed or enchanted by the darkness and the ugly parts, and just as overwhelmed and enchanted by the beauty and the joy and the eccentricities too. So I kept calibrating the book to some internal register of what felt like a correct ratio. White Fur is a little bit noir, so it does lean slightly more to the...[read on]
Writers Read: Jardine Libaire.
The Page 69 Test: White Fur.
--Marshal Zeringue