Sweet Jane by Joanne Kukanza Easley

Sweet Jane

by Joanne Kukanza Easley

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2019 Faulkner/Wisdom Writing Award Finalist

A drunken mother makes childhood ugly. Jane runs away at sixteen, determined to leave her fraught upbringing in the rearview. Vowing never to return, she hitchhikes to California, right on time for the Summer of Love. Seventeen years later, she looks good on paper: married, grad school, sober, but her carefully constructed life is crumbling. When Mama dies, Jane returns for the funeral, leaving her husband in the dark about her history. Seeing her childhood home and significant people from her youth catapults Jane back to the events that made her the woman she is. She faces down her past and the ghosts that shaped her family. A stunning discovery helps Jane see her problems through a new lens.

A Word from the Author

In 1957 Odessa, Texas, precocious six-year-old Janie knows vodka makes Mama mean and killed her grandma. She observes the adult world at her grandma’s funeral, and while she doesn’t mean any disrespect, knows she doesn’t want to grow up to be like Mama.

Jane’s comfortable life in 1984 Austin is upended when she learns of Mama’s death. While she looks good on paper: married, graduate school, coin-carrying member of AA, she hasn’t stopped running since she fled Odessa, hitchhiking to California at age sixteen, right on time for the Summer of Love. The sight of Mama swilling vodka in baby doll pajamas and gigantic pink fuzzy slippers, and the unforgivable words Mama hurled at her that night, are etched in Jane’s memory. Leaving her husband Joshua at home in Austin, and in the dark about her past, Jane attends Mama’s funeral.

When Jane returns to Odessa, her past and present collide, leading to shocking revelations and a decision about her future.

(Joanne Kukanza Easley, June 2020)