"Writing is pretty easy for me. I don’t follow the rules, because I don’t know the rules.I didn't even finish high school. People can say ‘Is she doing this on purpose, or is she just too stupid to know otherwise?’ I don’t know the answer. That’s why people think my voice is unique. I don’t know grammar, I don’t know structure, I just write like I talk. Maybe that’s why it’s different.”
“Different” is the perfect word to describe Jax Miller. Her passport reads Anne O’Donnell. While she now lives in Enfield, Co. Meath, she was born and raised in New York. Her debut novel, Freedom's Child, is not a low-key toe-dip into the literary world, but rather a highly-anticipated first work which landed her a book deal within days of its completion. Most different of all, however, is her road to writing in the first place.
“I didn’t start writing until I was 22,” she explains, her New York accent still strong. “I was in rehab – mostly for heroin. This really conservative counsellor I would see, suggested writing. I thought it was the stupidest thing ever. He wanted me to write a journal. I quickly realised I hated it – instead, I started writing what would be my first book. I brought in a chapter with a lot of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. He said: ‘This is the best fucking thing I’ve ever read’. Writing became my new drug of choice.”
It's an addiction that has served Jax well in the intervening period: her debut novel Freedom's Child- a relentless white-knuckle thriller – has just hit the shelves. It tells the story of Freedom Oliver, a woman living under Witness Protection, who is on the hunt for the daughter she gave up for adoption.
“Being a mother who put my own children up for adoption, Freedom’s Child is very personal to me. All the emotion is very raw and real. I was very honest writing it. There’s pain, and grief, but a lot of people don’t talk about it. Biological mothers of adopted children avoid the issue, because people automatically assume that we abused our kids, or mistreated them – and that’s not the case. It was very rough. I mean, it’s still rough. The first couple of years were very tough to adjust to not being a mother anymore. That shows in Freedom.”
Did writing the book force her to revisit the pain all over again? “You know how, in the book, Freedom refers to herself as a glutton for punishment? That’s me too,” she confesses. “I torture myself like that. When I was done, I sort of dusted my hands off and thought I’d never look at it again. Then, it’s picked up and I have editors constantly making me go back to it!”
The trigger for the novel was a trip across the United States on the back of a motorcycle. Consequently, the imagery is vivid and epic. Jax describes herself as a film buff and a fan of graphic novels, and the influence of both shows. The book also homes in on an extremist religious cult in the American heartlands. While not written directly from personal experience, she acknowledges that it’s a flavour of American life she was eager to share.
“I remember watching the Waco stand-off when I was a kid, and it terrified me,” she says. “This religious extremism is always in the media in the States. Right now, it’s the Westboro Baptist Church, who aren’t dangerous per se, but are very obnoxious, to put it politely! You wouldn’t get that here, so I tried to stay real American, and thought it would be cool to do these extremist cults and motorcycle gangs, stuff like that.”
Despite the harrowing journey Freedom undertakes, the novel doesn’t end in doom and gloom. The final chapter took a long time for Jax to finish, not because she didn’t know how.
“I knew word for word what it was going to be, but I didn’t want to finish it,” she smiles. “I really enjoyed the company of the character. The moment I finished, I felt incredibly lonely.”What about the air of optimism that pervades the closing passages?
“A lot of life is very bittersweet, that’s how the ending of the novel is to me. She’s had this shit life, but at the end she finds redemption – of sorts. I have so much from my past – I still grieve over my children, for instance – but here I am with a book deal, living sober. So I have a good side. But it took a lot of bad to get there. I couldn’t possibly have written something like this if all this pain didn’t happen along the way.”
The ink of that last chapter was still wet when HarperCollins signed Jax to a deal, rumoured to be worth six figures.
“I thought it was an ex-boyfriend playing a bad joke,” she laughs. “Even months later I’m waiting for that bubble to burst. I think I’m a natural born pessimist. I was waiting for a phone call to say thatsomething came up, and it’s not happening. Now, it’s on the shelf and I’m like ‘Holy shit, it worked!’”
Jax’s sophomore effort will likely land on shelves next year, while the idea for book number three is already developing nicely. There’s also a script in the offing – a plan to “make America scared of a 90 year old woman.” The old bank in Enfield, which Jax has converted into her office, will be busy. Having covered a road less travelled, this is a writer intent on sticking around.
“Oh, and I want it on record that I wanna be on the cover of Hot Press one day. With a guitar, and with my tongue hanging out, Miley Cyrus style.”
It would take a brave man to bet against her.