![]() ![]() Mira Corpora also examines notions of home, ritual and identity. "It's a book that has both moments that are incredibly tough and abrasive, but that go hand-in-hand or are overlaid with moments that are genuinely very beautiful and tender." "It's not a nihilistic book," Jackson says. ![]() The protagonist survives a series of horrific and abusive events, but also experiences grace and camaraderie. The novel chronicles the hardscrabble life of a runaway who also bears the author's name. 24, has been heralded as a "coming-of-age story for people who hate coming-of-age stories," and praised by literary heavyweights Don DeLillo and Dennis Cooper. It's middle-brow fiction that's been given a shiny coating of literature without being the thing itself. "'Literary fiction' is a great name for it, because it's not actually literature - it's fiction that has a literary patina. "These are people who spell things out for you - they ultimately don't really trust the reader," Jackson says. Of the current crop of best sellers and critics' darlings, he has little regard. Jackson, 42, hopes his debut novel, Mira Corpora, will contribute to the cause. What's needed, he says, is writing that does what punk music did to the complacent, bloated rock 'n' roll of the 1970s - blow it up and start all over. ![]() The way Jeff Jackson sees it, a lot of contemporary literary fiction is a sham. ![]()
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