The Diaries of Jane Somers is comprised of two emotional, very telling, sad novels, The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could.... In The Diary of a Good Neighbour Jane befriends an elderly woman. What I find fascinating about this story is Jane herself. She is middle-aged, has no children, and is a highly successful, fashionable editor of a woman's magazine. She comes across as unfeeling and snobbish. She barely mourns the loss of her husband to cancer, is decidedly cold about the death of her mother by the same disease, and is completely disconnected from her sister. With no real friends of her own she even shuns her elderly neighbor desperate for companionship. Oddly enough, Jane meets Maudie, a dirty, ferociously proud woman in her 90's and instantly feels a connection. The Diary of a Good Neighbour not only details the two women and their remarkable friendship but voices what it means to be vulnerable, to have shame, and, to grow old in a society that prides itself on youthful appearances, vitality and independence.
If the Old Could...is a continuation of Jane's story. Told several years after the death of Maudie (sorry, but you knew she couldn't live forever, right?) Jane falls in love with a married man. This time her selflessness is poured into helping her nieces as well as finding what it means to truly hurt over another person. ( )