Emotions were magnified to make them more legible. That said, the novel was inspired by childhood journals, but that inspiration was often very loose. Jackson: I believe anything between the covers of a novel should be treated as fiction – whether it’s technically true or not. I’m wondering, though, if the reader is supposed to take it as truth or read it as part of the fiction since it’s placed inside the boundaries of the novel. Given what happens in the novel, this author’s note becomes quite disturbing. And, just past the title page and the copyright page, there’s an “Author’s Note” that says the novel is based on childhood journals. Kimball: Right, the narrator is named Jeff, and you also are named Jeff. Early readers have said the book’s prose has a cinematic quality (and I’m a huge cinephile) and putting my name before the title seems to reference that the narrator shares my name.

I can see how it invites a deeper reading, though. There wasn’t any conscious strategy behind it other than to create something that stood out. Jeff Jackson: Two Dollar Radio was apparently inspired by movie posters when they came up with that presentation. On the cover, it’s “Jeff Jackson’s Mira Corpora.” It’s something I’ve only seen with movie titles, I think, and I’m wondering how you decided on that particular presentation. It’s not “ Mira Corpora” and then “Jeff Jackson” as it is on the spine. Michael Kimball: I’m curious about the way the title and author are presented on the cover. His strangely serene yet gripping, unsettling, and beautifully rendered novel Mira Corpora has within it all the earmarks of an important new literary voice.” Five of his plays have been produced by the Obie Award-winning Collapsable Giraffe company, including Botanica which was selected by New York Times as “one of the most galvanizing theater experiences of 2012.” Of Mira Corpora, Don DeLillo says this: “I hope the book finds the serious readers who are out there waiting for this kind of fiction to hit them in the face.” And Dennis Cooper says this: “Jeff Jackson is one of the most extraordinarily gifted young writers I’ve read in a very long time. His short fiction has been featured in Guernica, The Collagist, the anthology Userlands, and performed by New River Dramatists in New York and Los Angeles. He holds an MFA from NYU and is the recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and Baryshnikov Center.

Jeff Jackson is the author of the novel Mira Corpora, just released from Two Dollar Radio.

Mira Corpora by Jeff Jackson