“Miss Jane” by Brad Watson
Take a newborn girl, give her a condition that will embarrass her, limit her greatly, and likely keep her from getting close to anyone, much less take a boyfriend or a lover. Now watch this girl, Jane Chisolm, watch her live her life in the early 1920s in rural Mississippi. Write that life so beautifully that you are moved by Jane’s plight, long for her to heal, hope she’ll encounter a miracle.
I don’t know what gave Brad Watson the insight and understanding to write Jane’s life in such a tender, straightforward way. I read that he formed Jane’s character around an aunt who “had something wrong with her”. Wherever he got his ideas, they came to fine fruition.
No one knows what to do with Jane. Her parents work hard on their scrappy farm. Her father drinks hard every day. Her rebellious sister escapes to town. Jane can’t go to school. Kids avoid her.
Jane is attractive though, and charming. She hides her disability enough to attract boys, though she is anxious and fearful as to what to do after she attracts them. I felt deeply for her as she navigated her life, such an ordinary girl in many ways, so extraordinary in other painful ones. Watson makes Jane not too pitiful nor too tough, and, as I read, I stayed in a please let her get better what is she going to do next is it going to be all right, no it can’t be, but might it possibly? place, as I turned pages, fast.
One of my favorite characters in MISS JANE is the family physician, fond of his patients and his liquor, and very fond of Jane. Dr. Thompson is a gentle man who takes his job seriously and wants, so much, to help Jane. Dr. Thompson and his urban colleague, to whom he writes accounts of Jane’s condition, are both fine, highly respectful men. Jane’s young love interest is an upstanding man too.
The women in the book are less appealing. Jane’s mother is sharp-tongued and resentfully resigned to her lot as wife to a hard-drinking farmer. Jane’s sister, Grace, is rebellious and thick-skinned, determined to make a better life, unconcerned about who she hurts. Jane is the strongest of the book’s women, and the most sensitive.
I don’t remember the last time I read a book that made my chest ache when I read it and when I thought about it later. I look forward to reading more of Brad Watson. MISS JANE is masterful.
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I don’t know what gave Brad Watson the insight and understanding to write Jane’s life in such a tender, straightforward way. I read that he formed Jane’s character around an aunt who “had something wrong with her”. Wherever he got his ideas, they came to fine fruition.
No one knows what to do with Jane. Her parents work hard on their scrappy farm. Her father drinks hard every day. Her rebellious sister escapes to town. Jane can’t go to school. Kids avoid her.
Jane is attractive though, and charming. She hides her disability enough to attract boys, though she is anxious and fearful as to what to do after she attracts them. I felt deeply for her as she navigated her life, such an ordinary girl in many ways, so extraordinary in other painful ones. Watson makes Jane not too pitiful nor too tough, and, as I read, I stayed in a please let her get better what is she going to do next is it going to be all right, no it can’t be, but might it possibly? place, as I turned pages, fast.
One of my favorite characters in MISS JANE is the family physician, fond of his patients and his liquor, and very fond of Jane. Dr. Thompson is a gentle man who takes his job seriously and wants, so much, to help Jane. Dr. Thompson and his urban colleague, to whom he writes accounts of Jane’s condition, are both fine, highly respectful men. Jane’s young love interest is an upstanding man too.
The women in the book are less appealing. Jane’s mother is sharp-tongued and resentfully resigned to her lot as wife to a hard-drinking farmer. Jane’s sister, Grace, is rebellious and thick-skinned, determined to make a better life, unconcerned about who she hurts. Jane is the strongest of the book’s women, and the most sensitive.
I don’t remember the last time I read a book that made my chest ache when I read it and when I thought about it later. I look forward to reading more of Brad Watson. MISS JANE is masterful.
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