Miss Jane

Reviews

"Gorgeous…A writer of profound emotional depths." — New York Times Book Review

"[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." — Amy Grace Loyd, New York Times Book Review

"Watson infuses the story with curiosity, uncertainty, and, not unlike Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex, a certain wildness…The book plays on the tongue like an oyster—first salty, then cold—before slipping away to be consumed and digested." — Aditi Sriram, Washington Post

"Watson has done something extraordinary here. This is not grit-lit...But it is Southern literature, nevertheless: fresh, new, without cliché. Watson may be our best." — Don Noble, Alabama Writers' Forum

"[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." — Gina Webb, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"A story worth telling even as it breaks your heart." — Amy Brady, Chicago Review of Books

"An exceptionally well written book. The prose was beautiful and the novel had a gentleness about it...I loved this book for its simplicity and would highly recommend it." — Meredith Kelly, Luxury Reading

"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." — Silas House, Salon

"One of the most spot-on, most poetic renderings of Southern vernacular this side of Charles Portis. In his hands, Miss Jane becomes an epic of a small survivor. As with fellow Mississippian William Faulkner, Watson's humble characters prevail because they endure." — Ben Steelman, StarNews

"Miss Jane is a beautifully written, great-hearted and at times heart-breaking novel about decent but wounded people trying to make their way in the world. Watson’s creations could easily become mere caricatures in a lesser writer’s hands, but he never condescends to them or their plights, especially Miss Jane herself, who dances despite knowing that the dance and all that it represents 'was something with no long life ahead.' Miss Jane takes its readers beyond the usual levels of a novel’s power and into the sublime." — Ron Rash, author of The Cove

"Exquisitely written. 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, author of Dirty Love

"Miss Jane is one of the quieter, more beautiful books I’ve read in years…Set in rural Mississippi, it’s a story of an isolated woman who makes meaning and finds beauty in her circumscribed world." — Emily Nemens, author of The Cactus League

"Sometimes a novel comes along that changes the lives of those who read it. Brad Watson’s Miss Jane is that kind of novel. Watson takes as his inspiration the studied care of Gustave Flaubert. Yet his plaintive, intelligent, spirit-riven portrait of Jane Chisolm exceeds mere inspiration. Watson has become our Flaubert.  With its gleanings of attainment and sorrow, Miss Jane is that beautiful—and profound." — Alyson Hagy, author of Boleto

"Calmly, quietly, with deceptive simplicity, Brad Watson’s moving, McCuller-esque tale brings to life a most unusual woman, finding a most unusual grace." — Andrea Barrett, author of Archangel

"Like Lars Gustafsson’s “Greatness Strikes Where It Pleases,” Miss Jane is both winning and big-hearted in its embrace of and appreciation for what seems to be disabling difference. Its young protagonist is brave enough and wise enough to make the best sort of ongoing accommodation with her own isolating strangeness in a world that can’t offer much by way of support beyond discretion and tolerance, and one of this book’s great pleasures is the flowering of her progression from loneliness to a new understanding of her place within but apart from creation." — Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron

"Miss Jane is a novel of majestic empathy, an immaculate conjuring of a woman born strangely formed, her consequent inability to be sexually intimate giving her access to infinitely tender erotic witness. Readers have Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, Gustav Flaubert’s Emma Bovary, Harper Lee’s Scout – to these and other immortal women of literature, we can now add Brad Watson’s divine beacon of love, Miss Jane." — Melissa Pritchard, author of Palmerino and A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write

"If asked, I could quote quite a few passages from each of Brad Watson’s previous books. I am, in other words, a fan of long standing. So please know I’m not blowing hot air when I say that in the stunning MISS JANE, this supremely talented writer has created his finest and most surprising work to date. I will not forget these characters, or their story, or this richly evoked place. Wise, generous and beautifully written, Watson’s new novel is a treasure." — Steve Yarbrough, author of The Realm of Last Chances

"Brad Watson deserves applause not only for capturing a slice of the American South of a century ago but also for managing to inhabit convincingly the consciousness of a woman left from birth in a kind of gender limbo.  It was a pleasure to ride the tide of his artful and efficient sentences through this unusual tale." — Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States