The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

 

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling

Publication Date: October 5, 2021

The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling was a mind-blowing, psychological thriller that pulled me in with the first sentence and has still not let me go. To be quite honest, I am still processing what I read! This novel is thought provoking and spirals into madness at about the halfway point in the text. The only other work I could compare The Death of Jane Lawrence to is the movie Fight Club, both delve into the human psyche and what goes on inside our minds. 

Chapter One begins with an introduction to the novel's main character, Jane Stubblefield. She is a young lady that is trying to make her way in the world after being orphaned and raised by a loving family after World War I. She is very good at accounting and has devised a plan to create a business/marriage partnership with the town's local surgeon, Dr. Augustine Lawrence. At first Jane is met with shock from the doctor about her blunt proposal but after he has time to consider, he takes her up on her offer and invites her to sit in on a surgery with him. Jane's experience in the doctor's surgery can be described as nothing but magical. She witnesses the doctor take the life of another individual into his hands and do everything possible to save the man's life. Unfortunately, Jane also learns from this experience how quickly things can go wrong and how fleeting life truly is. She also learns that Augustine is not the strong person he outwardly presents himself to be. She begins to see the emotional toll that each patient's death brings to Augustine's psyche. 

Jane, herself, suffers from what I would call PTSD/shell shock. In her young life she experiences heavy shelling and gas attacks during World War I. The war also took her parents. She has "built a wall" around this traumatic event in her early life and tells herself that she is fine. She is the person she is today because of what she has overcome and is thankful for it. She never seems to have really recovered from the loss of her parents, so it is no surprise that the memory of this traumatic event comes back to haunt her in her adult life. Jane has no idea that she has been building walls around herself to hide her regret and guilt over losing her parents from the world. She comes to the realization that she has been doing this as a coping mechanism when she performs her first "magical ritual". Jane forces herself into a state of sleep deprivation which causes her to have a mental break. Her "walls" crumble around her leaving her exposed and vulnerable and force her to deal with the "statues/ghost" that stand in her path and represent all the traumatic events/memories that have become obstacles in her psyche. 

Caitlin Starling calls Jane's dive into her psyche a "magical ritual" and if the reader really thinks on it, it is a form of magic. Jane is calling what she is doing magic but it's living in the present, being self-aware and dealing with emotions as they happen instead of repressing them and building walls to hide behind. Augustine suffers from the same condition because as a doctor he isn't supposed to lose a patient. He heaps an incredible amount of responsibility on himself, but all illnesses and injuries are not repairable, everyone cannot be saved. He holds himself to a standard that no doctor could ever live up to. When Jane and Augustine begin to focus on the positive things they have and can do the real magic begins to happen and they begin to believe and understand that they are more powerful than any magical text could ever teach them to be. 

I really thought I was reading a novel about two individuals sinking into madness but in the end The Death of Jane Lawrence turned into a novel about forgiving ourselves and the power of positive thinking and believing in yourself. The danger we run as humans is how incredible our minds are and how much we can remember. Good memories are great, but those bad memories can put us into real danger. There is no greater magical power in life than to forgive yourself and let go of shame, regret, and guilt, live in the moment, and feel every feeling.

Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for and advanced copy for an honest review.  

For Purchase: The Death of Jane Lawrence