"The Strange Case of Jane O," Reviewed by Pat Sainz

“The Strange Case of Jane O,” by Karen Walker Thompson, is a psychological  thriller about the mysterious and truly strange case of Jane, a single mother nearing 40, who lives in New York City. Jane wakes up in a hospital after she is found unconscious, yet unharmed, in a city park. She has been missing 25 hours and has no memory of what she did or where she was during the lost hours.

   The daycare center Jane’s son attends could not reach her during her disappearance nor could her coworkers at the New York Public Library, where she works as a librarian. Staff at the daycare kept her child overnight since Jane could not be reached. Jane’s emergency contact for her 1-year-old son did not know Jane had a child.     

       Jane reaches out to psychiatrist Dr. Byrd, whom Jane claims to have met 20 years ago when she was 18. Dr. Byrd doesn’t recognize her nor do his records reflect an appointment with her. When she can describe his office in concrete detail, down to the artifacts that sat on his desk and what he was wearing, she becomes his most intriguing and important patient. 

      Jane has hyperthymesia, a condition in which people remember dates and facts about their past in extraordinary detail. Jane can recite details from almost any day in her past including facts about events taking place in the world on any specific day. To lose a day makes no sense to her. 

       As Dr. Byrd focuses on a diagnosis of dissociative fugue, a temporary state of amnesia, Jane again walks away from her apartment, this time with her child, and is gone for days. Newspaper headlines draw attention to her disappearance. A video camera catches her shopping for diapers and a case of disinfectant wipes, her face and that of her son partially covered. When Jane is discovered living in the furnished apartment of a former, now deceased, acquaintance, she is hospitalized again. 

     Jane tells Dr. Byrd that a flu has killed her son. (It’s 2018.) She recalls finding her upstairs neighbor dead on the floor. The neighbor and her son are very much alive. More strange incidents occur including an interaction with a deceased friend who warns her to get out of the city. In a Zoom call, Jane sees Dr. Byrd’s wife moving around in his office. Mrs. Byrd has been dead 3 years.

      Jane and Dr. Byrd entertain the possibilities of parallel universes which both find comforting. They believe Jane may also have the extraordinary gift of second sight or ESP. Both accounts seem plausible as the novel unfolds with unexpected events that heighten the anticipation of an explanation for Jane’s visions, past and the present. 

     The novel ends in January, 2020. Since many of Jane’s apparitions include a worldwide disease, I am wondering if a second novel is in store that covers the years envisioned by Jane. What else do the deceased have to tell her? Do her visions come to fruition? Would she survive the death of her son should it come to pass?

      Karen Thompson Walker is the New York Times bestselling author of “The Age of Miracles” (2012) and “The Dreamers” (2019).

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