We chat with author Hope Jahren about her reimagining Adventures of Mary Jane, which follows Mary Jane—the red-headed spark from Mark Twains, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, who stole Huck’s heart in just 30 pages—and comes to life with her own story of adventuring down the Mississippi River in the 1840’s.
Hi, Hope! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I’m a mom and a book lover and a teacher and a scientist and I live in Norway … I love to garden and ski and go to plays and watch movies set in the middle ages. I spend a lot of time on the fao.org website looking at agricultural data from around the world, like who grew what and how much did it yield and what they sold it for.
Your debut novel, Adventures of Mary Jane, is out June 25th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Girl thrives on her own.
What can readers expect?
To hear all the secrets of a girl who knows what it means to have to grow up fast after leaving home, all told to you in her own voice. If all goes as I hope it will, you’ll also get a new friend … Mary Jane needs friends and I hope you will be one to her. Oh, did I mention the year was 1846?
Where did the inspiration for Adventures of Mary Jane come from?
Like a lot of GenX, I read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in highschool, then again in college, then again to my own kiddo, then again for myself … it’s a great book, and I happen to love it, but there’s one character near the end that just kept bugging me. She’s made out to be very passive, but hmmm … there’s a dead body and … anyway it just didn’t add up. So I decided to dig around in history unil I uncovered who she really was.
What’s next for you?
Mary Jane has two cousins in the book: Susan and Joanna. They are very different in character but also go on to live rich lives full of exciting adventures. I’d love to tell their stories too.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
The Monstrous Kind by Lydia Gregovic is coming out in September. It’s a YA fantasy inspired by Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility and set in an alternate England.
