Miss Jane
-
- 5,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
‘As unexpectedly beguiling as it is affecting’ – Daily Mail
Inspired by the true story of his own great-aunt, Brad Watson tells the story of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-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 labour 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 mesmerizes those around her, exerting an unearthly fascination that lives beyond her still.
‘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
Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"Who can say what life will make of a body?" Watson (House of Mercury) asks in the affecting, nuanced story of a girl who "did not fear her own strangeness." Jane, the youngest daughter of a Mississippi sharecropper, is born with a genital defect that renders her incontinent and incapable of having children. A local doctor takes an interest in Jane's case as well as her father's home-brewed apple brandy and becomes a lifelong advisor and confidant to the "prodigiously contemplative" girl. Jane is most comfortable in the woods around her house, though she does tentatively engage with the world, knowing full well that "she would always be the odd one, the one with the secret." She indulges in a girlhood romance cautiously, unsure about what, if anything, to reveal about her condition. Jane is a great watcher, and the novel wonderfully conveys the amorous intensity with which she experiences nature's fecundity, "the burst of salty liquid from a plump and ice-cold raw oyster, the soft skins of wild mushrooms... the tight and unopened bud of a flower blossom." The story of Jane's lonely, lovely life is more powerful because of its emotional reserve. With the exception of several stagey confrontations involving Jane's older, coarser sister, Grace, Watson lets his ethereal heroine retain her quiet, dignified air of mystery.
