Hallucinatory Realism: Jeff Jackson discusses Mira Corpora

• COURTESY TWO DOLLAR RADIO

Jeff Jackson drops into Atlanta this weekend to read from his debut novel Mira Corpora. The Charlotte, NC playwright and novelist has been quietly gaining recognition in literary circles as of late, appearing on Slate's list of most overlooked books of 2013 and Flavorwire's list of best debut novels of 2013. Don Delillo praised the book, saying "Mira Corpora is fine work in its manic pacing and its summoning of certain cultural emblems. Present tense with a vengeance. I hope the book finds the serious readers who are out there waiting for this kind of fiction to hit them in the face." On Fri., March 28, he'll join Mark Cugini, Megan McShea, and Joseph Riippi for a reading at the 421 House.

Mira Corpora opens with an author's note that reads: "This novel is based on the journals I kept growing up. When I rediscovered these documents, they helped me confront the fragments of my childhood and understand that the are also part of the whole. Sometimes it's been difficult to tell my memories from my fantasies, but that was true even then. Throughout I've tried to honor the source material and my early attempts to wrest these experiences into language." Did you keep journals as a child? What are your earliest memories of writing?
Sure, I kept journals growing up, though they weren't the "Dear Diary" kind. They were a mix of things I experienced, incidents I saw around town, stories that friends and relatives told me, school gossip and local mythology, and a few items that are most likely invented. I'd write in sporadic bursts and a lot of the entries aren't even dated. To be honest, I barely remember writing most of this material and that's exactly what fascinated me about the journals when I re-read them years ago. They seemed like a perfect springboard into fiction.

When did you begin working on this novel?
I started Mira Corpora in 2006 and it took over five years to write it. I'd been writing short stories for many years, but this was my first attempt at a novel. It took several tries. There's an earlier version of the book that's 150 pages longer and structured in many short chapters instead of six longer sections. I had to completely remix and reconceive the book. The first chapter of the earlier version is now the final chapter of Mira Corpora. There was a steep learning curve.

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You've written a number of plays that have been produced by the Collapsible Giraffe theatre company. Do you find that certain stories or kinds of stories are better fit to the novel or the stage? Why was Mira Corpora suited better to a be novel than a play?
The plays come out of collaboration with the company. I'm creating texts that have to work as a performance and energize, animate, or short-circuit the actors in interesting ways. If the text doesn't pass that test - no matter how good it is - it gets cut or rewritten.

There was never any question that Mira Corpora was going to be a novel. It's meant to live on the page and slot directly into the reader's brain. I was trying to capture the sensation of those first few minutes when you're waking up and aware of your surroundings but there's dream logic operating as well. A sort of hallucinatory realism.

Can you imagine adapting it?
The book does odd things with tone and point-of-view that would be difficult to capture on stage. But I can imagine adapting Mira Corpora into a film. The novel is steeped in a series of images and locations - teenage oracles in the woods, funeral pyres, abandoned amusement parks, cryptic graffiti spreading on city sidewalks, clandestine concerts in tenement buildings - that I think could work well as movie.

What are you working on next?
I've almost finished the next novel. It's largely about music and the epidemic of violence. It's my attempt to write the last rock-and-roll novel, to imagine an end point for that genre.