America's First Female Serial Killer

Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster

By: Mary Kay McBrayer

Narrated by: Mary Kay McBrayer

Length: 6 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's Summary

This book is for listeners of true crime podcasts and audiences of both fiction and true-crime nonfiction. It is for watchers of television shows like Deadly Women and Mindhunter who are fascinated by how killers are made. It's for self-conscious feminists, Americans trying to bootstrap themselves into success, and anyone who loves a vigilante beatdown, especially one gone off the rails. 

It's the true story of first-generation Irish-American nurse Jane Toppan, born as Honora Kelley. Because even though all the facts are intact, 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 to hate herself. Jilted at the altar, Jane became a nurse and took control of her life - and the lives of her victims.

©2020 Mary Kay McBrayer (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC

I couldn’t put it down

This is one of the best books about a serial killer I have read. There’s a certain sick fascination I think we all get from Serial killers. America’s first female serial killer delivers on this fascination. Page turning plot. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Great until the final third

Despite a rather naive preamble by author (read by author) the book was well paced, detailed, interesting and full of intelligently crafted nuance that felt true to the spirit of this woman’s biographical story with info from source material.

However once the media gets involved in the case and the author describes what protagonist’s internal monologue might have been refuting the simplicity of the hyperbolic slander about herself, the author takes dramatic liberties that make the author sound more like a millennial grad school drop out then a woman with the paradigm or verbiage of time period.

Gifted Storytelling - Rare in True Crime Genre

Mary Kay McBrayer narrates this true crime, and she is perfect for the job. The tone of the story itself is probably not what most people would expect of a historic true crime. It has a "dramatized" feel to it, but it works. Trust me. I have read and listened to many, many books in the genre.

Presenting the setting of a crime cannot be easy, even for more contemporary murder cases. This is not just referring to the geographical and time period. McBrayer is great at showing you what it must have been like for Jane Toppan, who was apparently born with needs that couldn't be satisfied by healthy relationships and who had the additional misfortune of being abandoned, neglected, then used for labor and frequently physically abused. No one was THERE for Jane, who could only watch and interact with people that appeared to lead normal lives. This true crime story shows you how those phases of Jane's life played out.

McBrayer doesn't often leave Jane alone for long periods of time by going into lengthy clinical explanations of the crimes and their origins. That's why (to me), this book is remarkable as a true story: the people (the victims and the survivors alike) actually existed, yet they are told so well they seem as "knowable" as the most carefully created characters of good fiction.

For some of the reasons that this book shines, it might not completely satisfy every true crime lover. It certainly humanizes the "bad" people, while not leaving out the detailed context that this cruelty emerged in. I highly recommend it.

Written like a romance novel

Very few books are made better when they are read by the author. This isn't one of them.

The author starts out by stating this is the most accurate detailed book about Jane Toppan. The rest of the book is explicit conversations and daily happenings, which I found highly unlikely that there was any record of. The book is written more like a romance novel than a true crime. It definitely takes a lot of liberties with what might have happened. Still, I labored on and listened to the whole book, even tho a few things bothered me.

For example, there is a discussion by a sailor in 1901 (I think, maybe 1902) in which he laments that he quit smoking because he was short of breath, and besides his fingers could no longer strike a match, but if his fingers could light a cigarette, he'd smoke them both to the filter. This bothered me since at that time there was no correlation drawn between smoking and shortness of breath. And because filters were not added to cigarettes until the 1950's.

In another passage, the author writes that Jane pulled herself up by her bootstraps. That phrase had a much different meaning then, meaning it was an impossible and ludicrous task, not like today where it means fought her way up. Details matter.

By the end of the book, several sentences were repeated. It was hard to blame the editor though, as I'm sure they were nodding off by this point too.

Narrative non-fiction instead of a case study

Not very good, more narrative non-fiction than a study of the serial killer in question

Wow!

I’m just starting chapter 7 and couldn’t help but review. I knew the book would be wonderful after the introduction, but held off reviewing. McBrayer is a stunning beautiful writer… especially for the subject. She is an equally talented reader. Often, the author should avoid reading their own book, but this is just not the case with McBrayer. Her voice is wonderful and the reading of her work is flawless.

Very well written.

Mary Kay McBrayer has does an excellent job with this book. I was enthralled throughout. It is well written and very detailed. I feel like I learned a lot and enjoyed it along the way. I definitely recommend to anyone but especially anyone who is fascinated by true crime.