This is Capote’s In Cold Blood for serial killer enthusiasts: meticulously researched, superbly written, and incredibly vivid. Don’t miss it.” –Gabino Iglesias, author of Coyote Songs America’s First Female Serial Killer novelizes the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Although all the facts are intact, books about her life and her crimes … books about her life and her crimes are all facts and no story. Jane Toppan was absolutely a monster, but she did not start out that way.
When Jane was a young child, her father abandoned her and her sister to the Boston Female Asylum. From there, Jane was indentured to a wealthy family who changed her name, never adopted her, wrote her out of the will, and essentially taught her how to hate herself. Jilted at the altar, Jane became a nurse and took control of her life–and the lives of her victims.
“A thoughtful and inspired take on one of the greatest poisoners in history. America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster seethes with rage, compulsion, and a righteous condemnation of the servitude of the underclass. A chilling and sobering read.” –Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World
“McBrayer offers us a complex–and terrifying–portrait of a killer who seemed almost doomed from birth.” –Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI
“Brings the horrifying true story of Jane Toppan to lurid, novelistic life, and forces the reader face-to-face with the thoughtlessness and cruelty that helped turn a gifted, damaged child into one of America’s most legendary killers.” –Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
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At first, I found myself identifying with Jane, even knowing that she killed *a lot* of people. The author draws you in with Jane’s humanity. I really had to do some self-examination because there were instances where I felt the validity of Jane’s emotional reactions to her experiences. However, we soon parted ways once I read what she did.
This story is told superbly and raises many questions about how the status quo contributes to its own demise.
Five stars. Highly recommend.
Jane Toppan should be known as well as Jack the Ripper: America’s first female serial killer and an angel of death with dozens of victims, but also a victim herself. Mary Kay McBrayer’s novel gives voice to Toppan, never apologizing, but explaining how this invisible woman refused to be ignored by racking up a body count. Her story has become as neglected as her life, but McBrayer restores her to her place in our history of complicated, upsetting women who refused to comply with their own oppression, often violently.
Jane Toppan’s legacy may have been written in strychnine, but it is Mary Kay McBrayer who finds Jolly Jane’s voice in this captivating, empathetic exploration into one of America’s most prolific serial killers.
I love this book; it’s like Stephen King’s Misery as told by Shirley Jackson… a book as steady, precise, and twisted as Toppan’s murders. And somehow it’s laced with whimsy too. At the heart of the mystery, and the core of the book’s tantalizing design, is the question: how did she get by with it? The answer lies, wickedly, in a story of trust and service, and the invisibility that comes with it all.
Mary Kay McBrayer’s America’s First Female Serial Killer brings the horrifying true story of Jane Toppan to lurid, novelistic life, and forces the reader face-to-face with the thoughtlessness and cruelty that helped turn a gifted, damaged child into one of America’s most legendary killers. A heartbreaking page-turner of a book, and a story as sadly relevant today as it was a century ago.
America’s First Female Serial Killer is more than a book about murder; it’s a recipe for creating monsters. McBrayer has turned knowledge into a gripping narrative and cold facts into a full, painful life to show us how wanting to be needed can turn a normal person into a heartless fiend. This is Capote’s In Cold Blood for serial killer enthusiasts: meticulously researched, superbly written, and incredibly vivid. Don’t miss it.
Mary Kay McBrayer has written a thoughtful and inspired take on one of the greatest poisoners in history. America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster seethes with rage, compulsion, and a righteous condemnation of the servitude of the underclass. A chilling and sobering read.
In America’s First Female Serial Killer, Mary Kay McBrayer brilliantly presents one of the most fascinating serial killers in American history — and not just because the killer was a woman. McBrayer digs into the troubled life of Jane Toppan, who is by far one of the most disturbing ‘angels of death’ found in the annals of murder. What McBrayer offers us is a complex — and terrifying — portrait of a killer who seemed almost doomed from birth.