The acclaimed author of Last Days of the Dog-Men and The Heaven of Mercury brings to life a forgotten woman and a lost world in a strange and bittersweet pastoral; a life of quiet nobility and dignity lived against the background of the American century.
'Rich with profound meaning . . . A novel [of] immense stature . . . This proud, gentle novel shimmers with a subtle defiance, a near-physical need to celebrate a woman who lived against the odds.' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times
'The complexity and drama of Watson's gorgeous work here is life's as well . . . A writer of profound emotional depths, Watson does not lie to his reader, so neither does his Jane. She never stops longing for a wholeness she may never know, but she is determined that her citizenship in the world, however onerous, be dragged into the light and there be lived without apology or perfection or pity.' New York Times
'Miss Jane is courageous, resilient and enquiring . . . Hers is a history that is as unexpectedly beguiling as it is affecting.' Daily Mail
In this unforgettable and heartbreaking novel, Brad Watson tells the story of the life of Jane Chisolm, born in early twentieth-century rural Mississippi with a birth defect that will stand in the way of the central 'uses' for a woman in that time and place: sex and marriage. Yet the world of Miss Jane Chisolm is anything but barren. From the country doctor who adopts her to the hard tactile labour of farm life, from the sensual world of nature around her to the boy who loves but is forced to leave her, the quiet dignity of Miss Jane's life is nothing short of an act of triumph - not only over those who would shun her, but even over the limitations of her own body.
'A bittersweet southern pastoral, the story of a forgotten woman written with unearthly beauty. If Raymond Carver and Flannery O'Connor had a child, it would be Brad Watson.'
A. M. Homes, 'Best books of 2016', Guardian
'A beautifully observed study of a hopeless life bravely endured.' Anne Tyler, 'The Year in Reading: 2016', New York Times
I really admired Brad Watson's limpid novel
Miss Jane about a woman born with an irreparable and humiliating physical anomaly who manages to fashion a rich and enigmatic life despite all odds.
