Miss Jane

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 2016', 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.Anne Tyler, 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.Eileen Battersby, Irish Times