From the Publisher
“Mary Kay McBrayer’s America’s First Female Serial Killer brings the horrifying true story of Jane Toppan to lurid, novelistic life, and forces the reader face-to-face with the thoughtlessness and cruelty that helped turn a gifted, damaged child into one of America's most legendary killers. A heartbreaking page-turner of a book, and a story as sadly relevant today as it was a century ago.”
Shaun Hamill, author of A Cosmology of Monsters
“In America’s First Female Serial Killer, Mary Kay McBrayer brilliantly presents one of the most fascinating serial killers in American historyand not just because the killer was a woman. McBrayer digs into the troubled life of Jane Toppan, who is by far one of the most disturbing ‘angels of death’ found in the annals of murder. What McBrayer offers us is a complexand terrifyingportrait of a killer who seemed almost doomed from birth.”
Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock: Murder, Forensics, and the Birth of American CSI
"Mary Kay McBrayer has written a thoughtful and inspired take on one of the greatest poisoners in history. America's First Female Serial Killer: Jane Toppan and the Making of a Monster seethes with rage, compulsion, and a righteous condemnation of the servitude of the underclass. A chilling and sobering read."
Robert Levy, author of The Glittering World and Anaïs Nin at the Grand Guignol
“I found it difficult to put down this cinematic retelling of a troubled and murderous (yet charismatic and scientifically bright) mind from America's Gilded Age. Using vivid scene work and insight, Mary Kay McBrayer shows us more than just a portrait of a killer; she argues, with deft and horrific storytelling, the most extreme effects of our class system's tendency to marginalize, and ultimately de-humanize, so many of its citizens.”
Elena Passarello, author of Animals Strike Curious Poses and Let Me Clear My Throat
“Jane Toppan’s legacy may have been written in strychnine, but it is Mary Kay McBrayer who finds Jolly Jane's voice in this captivating, empathetic exploration into one of America's most prolific serial killers.”
Clay McLeod Chapman, author of The Tribe trilogy and The Remaking
“ America's First Female Serial Killer is more than a book about murder; it's a recipe for creating monsters. McBrayer has turned knowledge into a gripping narrative and cold facts into a full, painful life to show us how wanting to be needed can turn a normal person into a heartless fiend. This is Capote’s In Cold Blood for serial killer enthusiasts: meticulously researched, superbly written, and incredibly vivid. Don't miss it.”
Gabino Iglesias, author of Zero Saints and Coyote Songs
“ America's First Female Serial Killer sheds light on the horrifyingbut long neglectedstory of Jane Toppan, the nurse with the dubious honour of being America’s first female serial killer. Toppan’s own confession stated that she had dispatched over thirty victims through poisoningbut her motives are contradictory and unclear. In this compelling and creative book, McBrayer unravels the threads of Jane Toppan’s narrative to see what we can discover of the woman beneath. It’s a startling picture of sociopath quite unlike any other, told through the fragmented stories of those people who were unfortunate enough to cross paths with Jane Toppan. Complex, contradictory and cold, these stories offer the reader a chance to look behind the curtain and see what turned Honora Kelley, a young girl of Irish heritage left in the care of the Boston Female Asylum, into Jane Toppan, one of the most prolific and complex serial killers in America’s history.”
Dr. Hannah Priest, Manchester, editor of She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves