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Title: Miss Jane

Author: Brad Watson

Narrator: Tiffany Morgan

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-03-16

Publisher: Macmillan Digital Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Historical

Publisher's Summary:

Since his award-winning debut collection of stories, Last Days of the Dog-Men, Brad Watson's work has been as melancholy, witty, strange and lovely as any in America. Inspired by the true story of his own great-aunt, he explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural early 20th-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central 'uses' for a woman in that time and place - namely, sex and marriage.

From the country doctor who adopts Jane to the hard tactile labor of farm life, from the sensual and erotic world of nature around her to the boy who loved but was forced to leave her, the world of Miss Jane Chisolm is anything but barren. Free to satisfy only herself, she mesmerises those around her, exerting an unearthly fascination that lives beyond her still.

Members Reviews:

Beautifully written, contemplative novel

In a novel sure to draw initial comparisons with Jeffrey Eugenidesâ 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, letâs 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 donât plan to reveal any more about Janeâs 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 novelâs opening and most interesting scenes, this Dr. Thompson comes home tired and a bit intoxicated to find his porch full of several of the countyâs 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 Watsonâs points well. In addition to the bright and engaging Jane and the magnanimous Dr. Thompson, there is Janeâs 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.