# Read the first page of The Story of Jane by Catherine Cusset Read the opening of The Story of Jane by Catherine Cusset free, no signup. She finds a novel about her own life at her door. - Page: https://uncovered.ink/read/the-story-of-jane-catherine-cusset - Genre: Literary fiction - Year: 2001 - ISBN: 9781416578345 - Read it blind (cover and title hidden): https://uncovered.ink/?b=9780743202992&s=read-page - Buy: https://bookshop.org/a/125786/9781416578345 - Borrow: https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=9781416578345 ## The opening Some days you don’t feel even the slightest sadistic joy when you open the door for the neighbor’s cat and he gets drenched by the rain suddenly blowing into the foyer. Jane let the door close and sighed. The weather didn’t help. It would get even worse in fifteen minutes if she found no e-mail message from Alex at the office. The fat gray cat was staring at her with reproachful eyes, as if the rain were her fault. Her eyes rested on the brown package with the handwritten address; it had been there last night. Next to the package a New York Times in its blue plastic wrapping was lying on the floor. Maybe she would take it. A neighbor was probably out of town. In any case, her own newspaper had been stolen often enough, back when she was addicted to her morning dose of reality. This was why she had canceled her subscription. Earl Grey turned around and faced the door to the hallway, meowing plaintively to be let out of the small foyer and back inside the house. She reintroduced her key in the lock and pushed open the heavy door for him. He disappeared into the stairwell. Like the cat, she didn’t have the courage to throw herself into this windy deluge that would turn her umbrella inside out in less than a minute. She leaned forward to see which of her neighbors hadn’t picked up his package yet. She saw her name. Her eyes opened wide. Last night she had been too disturbed by the news of Xavier Duportoy’s death to think of checking the name—she never received packages at home anyway. She lifted it. Solid, rectangular and rather heavy—probably a book. Her face brightened. Alex must have gotten her address somehow. After thirteen days of silence he was sending her a gift instead of an e-mail. The handwriting on the envelope, both dancing and well balanced, quick and nervous, looked just like Alex. He used a fountain pen and blue ink—so did she. Her bad mood was gone. She struggled with the padded envelope, which was both taped and stapled. Some soft gray-brown stuffing fell from the torn paper. Inside was a plain white envelope—this was a well-protected book. She took out a yellow folder. A computer disk slipping onto the floor startled her. Inside the folder was an unbound manuscript. The first page read: No author’s name. On the second page there was a table of contents: Bronzino, Eric: men in her past. She looked at the brown envelope: no sender’s name. The package had been mailed in New York five days earlier, when Alex was still in France. It could not be Alex, of course. Jane quickly skipped through the first pages. It was about her. About her and Bronzino. Nine years earlier. Someone well informed. Three hundred forty-eight pages. She turned to the end and read the last sentence: “Downstairs she found the package with the manuscript.” She shuddered and looked up. Nothing could be seen through the glass panel but the rain and the water-soaked pink-and-white flowers of the magnolia tree. She would go to the office later. She had to clear up this unpleasant mystery first. The anonymous sender had chosen his day well—as if the storm, Duportoy’s death and Alex’s silence at a time when she needed him so badly weren’t enough. She picked up the disk on the floor, unlocked the heavy door between the foyer and the hallway, and climbed the three flights of red-carpeted stairs. When she stopped in front of her door, something touched her right ankle. She jumped to the side with a scream. Earl Grey. She laughed nervously and stamped the floor with her foot to make him go away. ## Books with a similar feel - [Skippy Dies by Paul Murray](https://uncovered.ink/read/skippy-dies-paul-murray.md) - [Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett](https://uncovered.ink/read/percival-everett-by-virgil-russell-percival-everett.md) - [The Story Prize by Larry Dark](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-story-prize-larry-dark.md) - [The Best American Short Stories 2021 by Jesmyn Ward](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-short-stories-2021-jesmyn-ward.md) - [The Little Paris Bookshop by Nina George](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-little-paris-bookshop-nina-george.md) - [The Best American Short Stories 2019 by Anthony Doerr](https://uncovered.ink/read/the-best-american-short-stories-2019-anthony-doerr.md) --- Source: Uncovered (https://uncovered.ink). A short sample shown for reading and discovery. Rights holders can request removal at https://uncovered.ink/takedown.