Synopsis
‘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.
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Details
06 November 2025288 pages
9781035061747Imprint: Picador
Reviews
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.A. M. Homes, 'Best books of the year', Guardian
[Watson's] sensuous prose eases its way through vivid, deliberate scenes, rich with profound meaning . . . 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
A writer of profound emotional depthsNew York Times
