Jayne Anne Phillips writes like a jeweler, setting each word like a gemstone.
Phillips won the Pulitzer Prize in 2024 for the novel 鈥淣ightwatch,鈥� set in a post-Civil War so nightmarish that a mother and daughter took refuge in an insane asylum.
In Phillips鈥� new book, 鈥淪mall Town Girls,鈥� we learn her own grandfather, once a wealthy lumberman, died in that same asylum.
The book contains Phillips鈥� essays over the years that tell of growing up in Buchanan, West Virginia, a small town crowded with ghosts.
The men are defined by their care of implements and vehicles. The power of women was in talk and domicile.
The book, subtitled 鈥渁 writer鈥檚 memoir,鈥� is also an ode to writers like Stephen Crane. And as a young woman, Phillips left West Virginia to confirm her suspicions that she was a writer, but as she says, born and raised in West Virginia, you can never truly leave.
Phillips spoke with Robin Young.
5 questions with Jayne Anne Phillips
How did this come to be? A book about place, but also about writing?
鈥淲ell, I had just finished 鈥楴ightwatch鈥� and it really got me to thinking about place. Not only the places we grow up in, but if we come from a place where generations of family have inhabited that same space, what kind of connection does that have with the way we think and the way we feel? The rituals of churches, funerals, evoked in paragraphs.
鈥淲riting is a kind of demanding savior for the writer, and the religion that writers practice, saving a world from vanishing. And so I was thinking about these pieces that I had written over time.
鈥淚 wanted to think about small towns and small-town girls, because small-town girls end up being big-city girls, many of them because they move. And the ones who stay end up running the town, you know, making the town better. And it really, I think, gets to the heart of what women want and what women think about.鈥�
Woman like your mother, who tells you stories about her mother, who lost a child to diphtheria, caused by tainted butter, served in family dishes. Your mom said her mom would cry about the 14-year-old butter girl who delivered this butter and then died. But also, she would always talk about the young son she lost.
鈥淲hen my mother used those dishes for holidays, she would always mention that story. And I still have those dishes and I still use them. And my mother was considered her mother鈥檚 ugliest baby. And I used to say to her, 鈥楬ow could your mother say that?鈥� That this other baby, Collie, older than my mother, but who died of diphtheria, how could your mother say he was her most wonderful baby. And my mother said, 鈥極f course, she could say that. What more could she do for him? I didn鈥檛 mind at all.鈥�
鈥淭his book is very much about that cycle of life and death. That death is a kind of transformation that forces us to move forward and change and yet take all of that with us. And it鈥檚 sort of we become deeper and deeper and deeper as human beings, as we live.
鈥淒eath, whether it鈥檚 in the Civil War, boys who are still children, or girls who are still children, things that happen to them when they鈥檙e 14, 15 years old, these really are adult stories, but yet these things happen and they still happen.鈥�
For those who haven鈥檛 been to West Virginia, describe it to us?
鈥淒eep, deep valleys and small skies. It just felt very fluid and very green and very primal, to live in the mountains. Because West Virginia is the only state that鈥檚 completely within the bounds of Appalachia. It鈥檚 not a southern state. It鈥檚 not a northern state. It really is a place unto itself. And just a sense of generational cycles of life.鈥�
You could look out the window of your grade school and see the big house your mother had lived in until she married your father. As a child you went to a beauty parlor. Why was it so important to you?
鈥淚t was a kind of inner sanctum where I was invisible. And that鈥檚 always the preferred position for someone who will be a writer. This book is very much about how women were perceived when I was growing up and how, without even consciously knowing it, I promised myself I would not be that kind of woman. And yet I saw how strong the connections were, and the beauty shop was, they went there and for one day in their buffeted, busy lives, they were cared for.
鈥淭hey got washed. I鈥檓 sitting there, a child, noticing that when they tip their heads back into that deep sink, their bodies relax, their legs sort of move apart, their hands are limp.
鈥淭here鈥檚 this sense of for these few moments, they are actually cared for because, of course, they spend their lives caring for everyone else. And the stories they told one another that I, of course, eavesdropped on, incredible stories. We all know of these kinds of stories.鈥�
When you were realizing you were a writer, you say Stepehen Crane was an influence. It鈥檚 his likeness on the cover of The Beatles鈥� Sgt Pepper鈥檚 album. He鈥檚 the 14th Child of Revivalist Methodists. His 鈥淩ed Badge of Courage鈥� is about a union deserter who felt guilty and wanted a wound, a red badge, to overcome his shame. And Crane was just 23.
鈥淚鈥檝e always felt [Crane] to be an ally. I tell people, 鈥業f you find a book you love, read every book that writer wrote. Try to find out everything you can about how they lived their lives and the time in which they lived.鈥� Because we all need allies. And I think for writers, writers are sometimes the best allies.
鈥淪o, they may have lived 200 years ago. There鈥檚 something about them that literally lights up your own endeavor. And it鈥檚 very important because writers are alone. They sit alone. I can鈥檛 write if there鈥檚 anyone even in the house. I have to be alone in silence.
鈥淭o feel that sense of, you know, an ally standing with you, to feel a sense of awe about writers that you love is so, so important.鈥�
鈥淐rane was constantly looking for money. He also was a war reporter, and he went to Cuba to write about the revolution there.鈥�
鈥淭he ship sank the second day out. And literally, I think it was four or five men were in a very small dinghy for many days, and they finally were pushed to shore by a kind of storm and they survived.
鈥淪tephen Crane had a really photographic memory and he told the story of the open boat to his brother almost immediately after getting back to shore and then just wrote it down almost as he had said it. And [鈥楾he Open Boat鈥橾 is the most beautiful, transformative story.
鈥淪o, there鈥檚 just this sense with Crane that he has such a deep immersion in the sensory worlds that he inhabits. He makes them real for us. We could be standing right beside him. And he always seemed very immortal to me that he could walk into any time and be a contemporary. There鈥檚 just something timeless about his work.鈥�
This interview was edited for clarity.
Book excerpt: 鈥楽mall Town Girls鈥�
By Jayne Anne Phillips
Reprinted with permission of the publisher. All rights reserved.
This article was originally published on
Copyright 2026 WBUR