Doris Lessing
The Diary of a Good Neighbor is one of two novels published in The Diaries of Jane Somers by Doris Lessing. The novel is a meditation on aging and on the treatment of the elderly. It unfolds in the first-person point of view of Jane (Jannna) Somers and is written in a diary format.
Janna is a successful, self-assured, impeccably-dressed, and stylish middle aged assistant editor of a fashionable woman’s magazine. Her entire focus is on her work and on maintaining her polished appearance. Her self-absorption interferes with her ability to maintain anything other than superficial relationships. After the death of her husband in what was presumably their happy marriage, Janna realizes she never really talked to him or got to know him. She had avoided ministering to his needs while he was dying. Similarly, when her grandmother and mother were dying, Janna’s sister took care of them because Janna couldn’t.
One night, Janna has a chance encounter with 90-year-old Maudie Fowler, a disgruntled, elderly curmudgeon. Spurred by feelings of guilt for neglecting her husband and mother during their illness, Janna befriends Maudie. She begins visiting Maudie in her basement flat. The place reeks of urine. The stench of a filthy kitchen and soiled, dirty clothes permeate the atmosphere. Janna rolls up her sleeves and begins cleaning for Maudie, buying her groceries and new underwear, and even bathing Maudie of the filth and excrement that has lodged itself on her body. The two become friends and enjoy lengthy conversations in which Maudie shares stories of her life.
Janna juggles the demands of her job with regular visits to Maudie. When Joyce, her co-worker and friend, leaves for America with her husband, Janna is devastated. She doesn’t understand why Joyce willingly abandons her work and her life in England to be with a man who repeatedly betrays her with his love affairs. Meanwhile, Janna has become emotionally attached to Maudie. Her empathy with Maudie extends to other elderly people she encounters. She sympathizes with their daily struggles to perform household chores, find food, and keep themselves clean, all the while staunchly insisting on their independence. Janna also becomes sensitized to the many efforts of others to shut away the elderly in homes where the rest of the population cannot see them.
Lessing writes in painstaking, clinical detail of the indignities of old age, of stunted mobility, of frailty, of the struggles to perform even the most basic activities, and of the feelings of shame associated with asking for help. Janna’s epiphany is gradual. She grows to admire Maudie and her fierce determination to maintain the self-respect and dignity to which she is entitled. Where once she had once dehumanized the elderly, rendered them invisible, considered them dirty and witch-like, and wanted them hidden away, Janna now seeks and enjoys their company. Recognizing them as resilient survivors, she appreciates the elderly as having once had rich, vibrant lives and loves with powerful stories to tell that can benefit us all.