Jane Toppan: America's First Female Serial Killer
America’s First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster, authored by Mary Kay McBrayer, is an interesting and experimental novel focused on the true story of exactly who you’d expect: Jane Toppan. While the work can’t be considered nonfiction, how it manages to account for the facts and historical reports of Jane’s life as though we are a fly on a wall, is intriguing and what really fueled me from page to page.
Though born Honora Kelley, the would-be-renamed Jane Toppan was damned, you could say, to live a life dedicated to serving others. From a young age, Jane was orphaned and forced to pick up quickly on doing chores and being a caretaker at a female asylum. She was also known to be full of stories, and was often punished for her playfully dangerous imagination.
Despite her sometimes childish ways, at an age much younger than her refuge companions, Jane would be taken in as a ward by the Toppan family. There, she would serve the Toppans, always wishing in the back of her mind that she’d be officially adopted or simply treated as one of their own. Though her dreams would never come true, Jane managed to stay positive and cheerful through it all—earning her the nickname “Jolly Jane.” Despite her hard start in life and the inability to ever have a family to call her own, when she was relieved of her services, Jane would chase her own dreams of becoming a nurse.
However, this is where things started to turn more sinister for Jane. Having finally been given some control and say to the things she did in her life, Jane instead began to dose people to death. What started as self-conducted experiments, quickly turned lethal and increased in occurrence as no one suspected foul play due to the shortcomings of late 1800s medicine. It wouldn’t be until Jane killed almost an entire household in one summer that authorities would launch an investigation into the quality of her medical care.
Given the descriptive scenes and unrecorded dialogue sprinkled throughout the novel, the research and diligence that McBrayer guides the story by is what really gives it legs. Without a true story to follow, to connect and be more curious about, the imaginative aspect of it would fall short. The conversations are strong enough to carry us to the next victim and the newspapers and investigative interviews really bring the piece to a strong close. In breathing new life into the true story of Jane Toppan, the novel provides just enough of a picture for readers to connect the dots and gain some insight into what might have happened over 200 years ago. While I’m typically a stickler for facts over fiction, when cautiously balanced by research and fascination, the result is something beautifully terrifying and engaging.
Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction and sometimes the desire to fill what would otherwise be gaps in history pushes us to create an imagined version for ourselves. Or in the case of America’s First Female Serial Killer, for everyone. Even if you’re a reader more interested in facts or your heart throbs for true crime documentaries and solving crimes yourself, I suggest that you give this novel a chance. Take a stroll on the wild side if you will, and for once, just let your imagination and mind wander. You won’t regret it.
Mary Kay McBrayer is a contributing editor for Book Riot, where she co-hosts the literary fiction podcast “Novel Gazing” and contributes to its weekly horror newsletter, The Fright Stuff. McBrayer also co-founded an analytical horror podcast, “Everything Trying to Kill You.”
To purchase her book or learn more about her status in the horror community, click here.
Article written by Destiny Johnson
Destiny writes about true crime and thrillers. She likes movies and stories that make you question the world around you, more so than what makes you jump.
