THE STRANGE CASE OF JANE O.

A New York City psychiatrist treats a patient with troubling blackouts and hallucinations, raising a host of tantalizing questions about the nature of psychology, memory, and linear time.

As the title implies, the book is presented largely as a case study, with Dr. Henry Byrd writing about his patient Jane O., a 38-year-old single mother, with measured detachment. Days after their abbreviated first session in the spring of 2018—Jane walked out after only 14 minutes, saying “I think this was a mistake”—she turns up in an emergency room with no memory of the previous 25 hours; she names Dr. Byrd as her doctor. While the hospital soon releases Jane, Dr. Byrd becomes increasingly fascinated by her unusual case. Jane has hyperthymesia—an excessive, accurate memory for dates, places, and events—but has also recently experienced a frightening hallucination: She saw and even talked with a man she knows died when they were both teenagers. As her therapy with Dr. Byrd progresses, she suffers increasingly worrisome blackouts and hallucinations. While the police suspect she’s a fake, Dr. Byrd’s attempts at diagnosis lead him to fascinating, bizarre-sounding theories. Meanwhile, at Dr. Byrd’s urging, Jane begins writing a journal in the form of letters to her son that she hopes will explain her situation to him in the future. Revealing details she has yet to share with Dr. Byrd, the letters show that she’s a caring mother and a self-aware, if lonely, person—not unlike Dr. Byrd, an equally caring single father facing personal and professional difficulties that medical ethics prevent him from discussing with Jane. The relationships among scientific fact, emotion, and psychology are tangled here. No viewpoint is reliable, but no one is wrong. Just when the truth seems sad but clear, Walker throws in a twist (or two) to turn the narrative on its head in satisfyingly disturbing ways, especially given that Walker’s last novel, The Dreamers (2019)—about an imaginary epidemic—seemed like pure fiction when it was published in pre-Covid times.

A novel that begins quietly becomes an exhilarating and riveting must-read and then read-again.