In truth, self-isolation has been more of a challenge than I would have anticipated. As a classic Myers Briggs introvert, I was convinced that this would be a cinch, giving me time to find a home for my novels and to polish up all the half-baked short stories I’ve never gotten around to revisiting. But more often than not, I’ve simply wanted to lie on the sofa and read. I’ve been thinking a lot about representations of isolation in literature. What is the intersection between isolation, solitude, aloneness and loneliness? And how is this depicted in books? What wisdom or solace can literature offer us in this particular time? Of course, reading itself is a kind of solace, but I’ve been chasing down texts that specifically engage with these issues.

As the title suggests, May Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude (1973) is an account of a year in the poet’s isolated life on the outskirts of a New Hampshire town. She makes sporadic entries in her diary, recording the changing seasons, her writing progress, and her struggles with depression. I like Sarton’s poetry and I’m never sure whether it’s a good idea to look beyond the texts of authors you admire. Certainly there are moments when Sarton’s openness about her anguish and despair makes for a sad prism through which to reread her poetry. She is also a challenging narrator on occasion—it is difficult to sympathise, for example, when she allows for a pregnant stray cat she has cared for to be captured and euthanised. But her self-honesty is compelling and, for me, the great value of the book is its engagement with solitude.