Miss Jane: A Novel

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 NetGalleySidenote: 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.

This novel touched me by triggering a long-forgotten memory. As a medical student in the 1960's, I was assigned to a little girl with a variant of this congenital malformation at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. The big difference was that my little patient also had exstrophy of the cloaca, meaning there was no skin covering over the anogenital area. I rotated off the service shortly after the child's admission but ran into the staff physician, a trailblazing female pediatric surgeon, Dr. Rowena Spencer, in a hospital corridor a short time afterward, When I inquired about the outcome, I could see tears well up in Dr. Spencer's eyes as she said, "For the first time in her life, she was able to wear little girl panties." Miss Jane and the author's real-life great aunt were born too early for this option. But I know Miss Jane turned out just fine, nonetheless.The narrative is as tender and Southern as drinking sweet iced tea, rocking on the porch, and sweeping the front yard. A real winner.

Do you remember that scene in the movie version of The English Patient where Katherine lists for the sake of archeologists (and supporters of their project, all of them guys) gathered around a fire the several varieties of love? Romantic, filial, etc. Well, this novel, set in the deep, deep American south during the Great Depression years does much more than list them. It creates a couple of the most extraordinary and unlikely sort: a curious country doctor and his patient, the latter a sensitive and gentle young woman suffering from an extremely disabling case of fecal incontinence (owing to congenital underdevelopment of the partition between rectum and vagina) whom the doctor himself had seen into this world in an at-home birthing. And the love that evolves between doctor and patient is a many-kinds thing; so many it’s breathtaking. (The one kind missing is sexual, of course, yet eros is there by implication as she, the patient grows older—by which time the doctor’s wife has died.) Nor does the novelist omit corresponding forms of hatred in the surround of this central couple. I could go on—the merging of natural and social environments in a frenzy of sensual (tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory) detail is a marvel. But I won’t. Don’t miss out: read this book!

This is the story of a young woman born to parents who already have two older boys and a daughter and lost a young son. They are older parents for the time, early 1900s, farmers, who live deep in the country of Mississippi, and are not optimistic about the future. Nor are they looking forward to the birth of this baby. When Jane is born, she is missing something, which we, as readers, are not privileged to know right away other than that she has a birth defect. This will be a part of this young girl’s life, causing her embarrassment and a lifetime of exclusion from everyday life.However, young Jane has the benefit of the friendship of the doctor who delivered her. He is the outlier in the town just outside of where she lives. Checking on her regularly, he has taken her under his wing.While Jane endures physical challenges and seems to miss out on many of life’s pleasures, she is more in tune with many other senses that others might take for granted or perhaps, never even notice. She embraces her situation for what it is. She is not looking for special treatment, for sympathy or for anything to change. There are numerous lessons to learn from both the young and older Jane.  Her eyes are wide open to the earth where she walks, the dirt in her garden that allows her vegetables to grow, and the farm animals that she likes for who they are rather than as nourishment. She knows love on an otherworldly level. And, she is one fearless lady.

One has to admire the quality of the writing. It is written with a deftness of touch that is essential for a very difficult subject. The characters are beautifully drawn, with the possible exception of the sister, who does not quite work for me. I understand that Jane is based upon the author's aunt, which explains why the book was written. However, I am not sure who the book was written for i.e. I am not sure that Mr Watson had a target audience in mind. As a man, when I finished it, I was not sure that I had learned anything about the human condition, male or female. All of the male characters appeared to behave quite well, and romantically, albeit with a taste for hard liquor. All of the women were hard and unfeeling.Whilst I admired the writing, I am not sure that I can say that I enjoyed it. Also, it rushed the last two thirds of Jane's life. I was developing a real interest for the first 24 years of her life, and then suddenly it was over.

This is an extraordinary book. It narrates the life of a woman born to a farm family living outside a small town in 1915. She is born with a medical condition, untreatable at the time, which leaves her incontinent. This both limits her choices in life (marriage for instance not being an option) but also gives her a solid sense of self and self-sufficiency. She just gets on with life in her own way. Although the plot seems slight it is very engaging.

This is an awesome book, beautifully written. Some amazing literature comes out of America. This was as well written as To Kill A Mockingbird.Wow

Excellent book which is beautifully written.

Great book with a sad yet positive view of a life well lived.