The Strange Case of Jane O. A Novel

by Walker, Karen Thompson

• ISBN13: 9781984853943
• ISBN10: 1984853945
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781984853950
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-02-25
• Publisher: Random House
• More Book Details
• Purchase Benefits

Summary

In this spellbinding novel, a young mother is struck by a mysterious psychological affliction that illuminates the eerie dimensions of the human mind—and of love. A provocative literary puzzle from the New York Times bestselling author of The Age of Miracles.

In the first year after her child is born, Jane suffers a series of strange episodes: amnesia, premonitions, hallucinations, and an inexplicable sense of dread. As her psychiatrist struggles to solve the mystery of what is happening to Jane’s mind, she suddenly goes missing. A day later she is found unconscious in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, in the midst of what seems to be an episode of dissociative fugue; when she comes to, she has no memory of what has happened to her.

Are Jane’s strange experiences related to the overwhelm of single motherhood, or are they the manifestation of a long-buried trauma from her past? Why is she having visions of a young man who died twenty years ago, who warns her of a disaster ahead? Jane’s symptoms lead her psychiatrist ever-deeper into the furthest reaches of her mind, and cause him to question everything he thought he knew about so-called reality—including events in his own life.

Karen Thompson Walker’s profound and beautifully written novel is a speculative mystery about memory, identity, and fate, a mesmerizing story about the bonds of love between a mother and child, a man and a woman, and those who we’ve lost but may still be alive among us.

Author Biography

Karen Thompson Walker's New York Times bestseller The Age of Miracles has been translated into twenty-nine languages and was named one of the best books of the year by People, O: The Oprah Magazine, and Financial Times, among others. Her most recent novel is The Dreamers, which was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and was named one of the best books of the year by Glamour, Real Simple, and Good Housekeeping. Born and raised in San Diego, Walker is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program. She lives with her husband, the novelist Casey Walker, and their two daughters in Portland, and is an associate professor of creative writing.