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A review by storytold
We, Jane by Aimee Wall
3.0
I read half of this in August and wondered if I might put it down for a while, but came back to it quickly because—as we all know—The News. I enjoyed the last ~60 pages very much, but I think this book suffered for its length: it was meant to be a much shorter story about rural life and rural abortions, wrapped up in 200 pages mostly about Marthe. As a consequence, the rural abortion provider storyline itself felt like quite a macguffin through most of the book—a catalyst through which Marthe could embark on a journey of self-exploration.
I enjoyed the last 60 pages, frankly, because the preceding 140 pages delayed dealing with the question of rural provision of abortion altogether. Those pages were about Marthe alone, but Marthe was not an easy character to follow because she occupied a state of profound ambivalence throughout the book. She was drawn to rural abortion provision out of pure convenience—she was looking for purpose, but purpose could have been anything. This happened to be right in front of her face. The story could equally evolved when the guy putting on the show came to ask Ruth if she wanted to play and Marthe played instead, and Marthe found her true purpose as a performance act. And so I found it very difficult to understand this as a novel about rural abortion until, finally, it actually was—in the book's back third. That made this not feel like one story, but instead two stories in two forms sewn together with a fairly obvious seam. It seemed to lack the required framing device to cohere the two stories: a nonlinear narrative, or more thorough thematic integration. It was a book about choice, and Marthe makes a number of choices, but she also didn't feel like she had a ton of agency owing to her ambivalent nature, so that theme felt ultimately diluted.
I also generally struggled with elements of the writing; contemporary writers do love not to use quotation marks in dialogue these days, and while at times I didn't notice their lack at all, in others the colloquial style made it difficult to follow, which also affected my reading experience. However—certainly timely, and a worthwhile read with real moments of grace, especially if you have patience for tense relationships between deeply ambivalent (in the sense of occupying two states at once) female protagonists.
I enjoyed the last 60 pages, frankly, because the preceding 140 pages delayed dealing with the question of rural provision of abortion altogether. Those pages were about Marthe alone, but Marthe was not an easy character to follow because she occupied a state of profound ambivalence throughout the book. She was drawn to rural abortion provision out of pure convenience—she was looking for purpose, but purpose could have been anything. This happened to be right in front of her face. The story could equally evolved when the guy putting on the show came to ask Ruth if she wanted to play and Marthe played instead, and Marthe found her true purpose as a performance act. And so I found it very difficult to understand this as a novel about rural abortion until, finally, it actually was—in the book's back third. That made this not feel like one story, but instead two stories in two forms sewn together with a fairly obvious seam. It seemed to lack the required framing device to cohere the two stories: a nonlinear narrative, or more thorough thematic integration. It was a book about choice, and Marthe makes a number of choices, but she also didn't feel like she had a ton of agency owing to her ambivalent nature, so that theme felt ultimately diluted.
I also generally struggled with elements of the writing; contemporary writers do love not to use quotation marks in dialogue these days, and while at times I didn't notice their lack at all, in others the colloquial style made it difficult to follow, which also affected my reading experience. However—certainly timely, and a worthwhile read with real moments of grace, especially if you have patience for tense relationships between deeply ambivalent (in the sense of occupying two states at once) female protagonists.