Today we remember writer Brad Watson, who we interviewed in July 2016 about his novel "Miss Jane." Brad Watson died in 2020.
In his novel “Miss Jane,” drawing on the story of his own great-aunt, Watson explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early 20th-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 highly erotic world of nature around her to the hard tactile labor of farm life, from the country doctor who befriends Jane 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.
Award-winning author Brad Watson was a native of Mississippi who taught at the University of Wyoming. He is the author of three collections of stories and the novels “The Heaven of Mercury,” which was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award and “Miss Jane.” His fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Granta, Ecotone, Electric Literature, and the Idaho Review, among other publications.
