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. For readers of Lori Lansens' The Girls, Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café and Robert Seethaler's A Whole Life.
Brad Watson teaches creative writing at the University of Wyoming,
Laramie. His first collection, Last Days of the Dog-Men, won the
Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of
Arts and Letters; his first novel, The Heaven of Mercury, was
shortlisted for the National Book Award, and his second story
collection Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives was shortlisted for
the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.
'Watson's talent is singular, truly awesome; he reminds me of
Raymond Carver, Flannery O'Connor, Chris Offutt in his bravery, his
unflinching willingness to look at what might set others running.'
A.M. Homes
'Superb . . . Watson . . . has a great heart, and this great heart
has made him a great writer.' Independent
Miss Jane is courageous, resilient and enquiring; her parents are
troubled souls, but loving. That said, Watson doesn’t succumb to
sentimentality . . . With the woods and fields of Jane’s rural home
seeming to cast a subtle enchantment on her life, hers is a history
that is as unexpectedly beguiling as it is affecting.
*Daily Mail*
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.
*Guardian*
For a beautifully observed study of a hopeless life bravely
endured: Brad Watson’s Miss Jane, the story of an
early-20th-century Mississippi woman with a devastating physical
anomaly.
*New York Times*
[Watson's] sensuous prose eases its way through vivid, deliberate
scenes, rich with profound meaning . . . Convincing, occasionally
shocking and often overwhelming . . . The brutality of human
existence and its random injustices are among Watson’s themes. But
the harshness and candour are countered by interludes of
extraordinary beauty . . . It is a novel that acquires immense
stature as the narrative settles down into what it is: an
extraordinary study of character, not just of Jane but also, more
importantly and, perhaps, unexpectedly, of the people around her .
. . This proud, gentle novel shimmers with a subtle defiance, a
near-physical need to celebrate a woman who lived against the
odds.
*Irish Times*
Miss Jane covers a quiet, often solitary lifetime enriched by the
unfettered outdoors, the tough routine of farm life, and the ache
of unconsummated love. Watson's characters are mentally dexterous
in spite of their physical hardship. The book plays on the tongue
like an oyster - first salty, then cold - before slipping away to
be consumed and digested.
*Washington Post*
The complexity and drama of Watson's gorgeous work here is life's
as well: Sometimes physical realities expand us, sometimes trap;
sometimes heroism lies in combating our helplessness, sometimes in
accepting it. 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*
In all its verisimilitude, Miss Jane is painful and hopeful in
almost equal measure, a story worth telling even as it breaks your
heart.
*Chicago Review of Books*
Exquisitely written . . . life in all of its unsentimental and
symphonic complexity . . . Miss Jane is an artistic triumph, a
novel that will linger inside you as long as your own memories do.
Brad Watson's gifts are immense.
*Andre Dubus III*
[An] ambitious, touching novel
*New York Times*
Miss Jane is both winning and big-hearted in its embrace of and
appreciation for what seems to be a disabling difference. One of
its great pleasures is its young protagonist's flowering from
loneliness to a new understanding of her place within creation.
*Jim Shepard*
A beautiful portrait of a young girl trying to navigate a difficult
life – and an honest story that will bring you to tears more than
once.
*Press Association*
Brad Watson has been an aspiring movie star, a garbage collector, a
digger of ditches, a bartender, a professor, and much more... He
can now add masterful novelist to that list . . . [Watson's] first
novel, The Heaven of Mercury, slayed the critics, garnering praise
from practically all corners . . . firmly establishing Watson's
place as a major American writer . . . Miss Jane . . . takes
Watson's writing to new heights . . . Miss Jane is an especially
timely novel for right now, when so much of our turmoil is
dependent on how we view the Other, whether it be because of race,
sexuality, religion, or where someone was born. It's also a novel
that thrums with beauty, melancholy, and desire.
*Salon*
Brad Watson's eloquently homespun second novel, Miss Jane . . . His
'country folk' are complex and vulnerable, their stoicism and outer
coldness a response to events beyond their control... [Jane's]
fearless acceptance of what sets her apart is profoundly human, and
her lifelong struggle to understand her place in the world reflects
the intricate workings of our own mysterious hearts.
*Atlanta Journal-Constitution*
Watson's accomplishment here is a marvel . . . Miss Jane
demonstrates that through the act of imagination we can enter into
another person's soul. Such imagination, though, requires ignoring
boundaries and limits - including the conventions of gendered
genres and gender norms - so that we can fully offer ourselves to
the world of love.
*Jackson Clarion Ledger*
[A] tender and affecting novel
*National Book Review*
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.
*Financial Review (Australia)*
Here’s a challenge for you this winter: find a book that’s as
beautiful as Miss Jane. Wait, don’t bother. It’s impossible . . .
From almost the first page of this story of a hard-scrabble life,
you’ll find yourself basking in words that set difficulty awash in
lushness . . . You’ll just float on the sentences inside this book.
Start Miss Jane and kiss your afternoon goodbye.
*LGBT Weekly*
Watson tells this story with such tenderness, sensitivity and
grace, at times I just wanted to weep . . . a beautiful novel. A
writing teacher at the University of Wyoming, Watson says he based
it on the life of one of his great aunts, and went through thirty
drafts to get it right. He did.
*Seattle Times*
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