In a novel sure to draw initial comparisons with Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex, Brad Watson imagines the life of a woman with a difference so great that it has the potential to leave her feeling utterly alone in the world. Comparisons with Middlesex are warranted, Jane is conceived in a, let’s say baleful coupling, and though she appears in nearly every way to be a normal child there is one great difference that will result in a lifetime of being an outsider.
Comparisons between the two novels should stop there. Miss Jane is not in any way derivative, and in fact Watson has drawn on the true life experiences of his own Great Aunt who suffered from the condition described in the novel. The result is a heartfelt exploration of loneliness, acceptance and happiness expertly guided by a taut prose that seems to own the language and experience of those times.
I don’t plan to reveal any more about Jane’s problem except to say that is a congenital anomaly of the genitals. I felt that Watson purposefully held back on the details, adding them bit by bit as the novel progressed, and this slow reveal of the diagnosis and its prognosis gave me some sense of the uncertainty, melancholy and mystery that Jane (and her real life model) must have felt in earlier times.
One of the great strengths of this novel is its look at early 20th century medicine. Watson accomplishes this through the character of a sage, country doctor who has spurned the big hospitals and East Coast opportunities of his medical school colleagues and has chosen to remain in the south, serving mostly the poor. In one of the novel’s opening and most interesting scenes, this Dr. Thompson comes home tired and a bit intoxicated to find his porch full of several of the county’s afflicted. This scene alone would make the book worth reading, especially the man gone blind after being struck in the head with a shovel by his wife (who accompanies him and assures the doctor her husband deserved it). These scenes are powerful and more than once they inspired comparisons to Steinbeck and to some extent Stegner.
While the cast of characters here is not large, all are strong and interesting and serve to make Watson’s points well. In addition to the bright and engaging Jane and the magnanimous Dr. Thompson, there is Jane’s father, the self made man become world weary who makes a legendary apple brandy, and her mother a melancholy and distant woman who never got over the death of her third child. Grace, her sister is a rebel looking for the quickest way off of the farm even at the young age of 9. When the depression hits, it exaggerates the flaws in each of these characters and Jane becomes in many ways the most stable part of their family.
In another great scene, Jane’s mother exasperated and saddened seeks out a local fortune teller. She asks the seer, “will my daughter ever be normal?” Her answer, “no, but she’ll be happy. Happier than you.” That prediction is a tidy summation of the novel itself. We spend so much time hurting for Jane, putting ourselves in her shoes or even worse, putting our children in her shoes and we want to fix her. And don’t get me wrong, Jane wants a solution to her problem too. But instead of yielding to the melancholy her family is certain she should feel and the reader feels she should feel, she gets on with the business of living.
Miss Jane is a contemplative novel that takes long and deliberate looks at the human condition including loneliness and sadness, love, self worth, adversity and happiness among a great many others. At one point, Jane’s father, late in his life and with the angst of a parent who knows he did not deliver his best for his child apologizes to Jane for his role in her condition. She calms him saying, “I’m fine. I know who I am, and I know how to live with that.” We’d all do well to arrive in that same place and Miss Jane is a beautifully written vehicle that leads the reader down the path Jane takes to get there.
Note: Free ARC received from the publisher via NetGalley
Sidenote: If you are into cover art, this is among the year’s best. It actually becomes more meaningful as the novel progresses, something I thought was unique.
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Top reviews from other countries
evelyne benardeau
Ne convient pas écrit anglais
Reviewed in France on September 22, 2018Female Reader
The life of an unsung heroine
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 20, 2017pinpin13
Ecrit en Anglais !!! je ne le savais lors de l'achat .
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