The Micropolitics of Elder Care inMemento Mori, Diary of a Good Neighbor, and aTaste for Death

Abstract

Using three novels—Muriel Spark's Memento Mori, Doris Lessing's Diary of a Good Neighbor, and P. D. James' A Taste for Death—we examine themes relating to the social construction of caregiving. In our reading of the stories we found numerous instances of the political in the personal, and of how care can be shaped by inequalities of class and gender, by organizational practices and attitudes rooted in cultural assumptions, and by the social idealization of care provided by relatives and friends.