Jane Victoria Stuart lives at 60 Gay St., Toronto, with her mother, Aunt Gertrude, and Grandmother. Mother is very beautiful and well-dressed and goes out almost every night, but life at 60 Gay is dreary and oppressive - not least because Grandmother is the kind of matriarch who rules with an iron fist. And she is constantly finding fault with Jane.
She is nine years old when she learns that her father is still alive - she'd always assumed he was dead. She isn't taught to hate Father, exactly, but between the girl at school and cousin Phyllis telling her that it was the birth of Jane that broke up her parents' marriage, that her father never wanted her, and her Grandmother being equally poisonous about him, when a letter from him arrives unexpectedly a year later, requesting Jane spend the summer with him on Prince Edward Island, Jane refuses to go. Only, Uncle William says Jane must or her father could take her away forever, and so Grandmother decides: Jane must go.
But, not only is PEI everything that Gay Street is not, her father turns out to be a man Jane instantly clicks with and loves. He gets her as no one else ever has, and the two form a close bond. Together they go house-hunting with a fairly exact list of specifications: A little green and white house on a hill with some trees around it - young white birches, preferably - by the gulf, with a window looking seaward. And "lashings of magic" (p.71). After visiting several promising homes they finally find Lantern Hill, a very small house that meets pretty much all their requirements.
Jane, who has never been allowed to do anything at 60 Gay, happily takes on all the housekeeping, learning to cook, making tea for visitors, growing plants and veggies. She makes friends with all the children in the area and learns to drive the neighbour's tractor into the barn, shingle a roof, and make ambitious meals. Her father, a writer, brings to life the Bible and history and gradually her own confidence rises, so that when she has to return to Toronto and St Agatha's school for girls, she's more assertive and gets good marks at subjects she never liked before.
But as young Jane tries to juggle her love for both her parents, neither of whom will speak to each other or about one another, she becomes sure that they still love each other and it was meddling Grandmother and Aunt Irene, her father's sister, that poisoned the marriage - not Jane. But perhaps only Jane can stop them from continuing their mistake, and bring them back together again.
Of all the LM Montgomery books I read from the age of 10, this one was my first favourite. I liked Jane more than Emily (Anne came later for me, around 15 or so), I loved the self-contained novel that this is, I loved the stark contrast between her Toronto world and her life on Prince Edward Island - I called it a dichotomy at first, but Jane's nature isn't split; rather, arriving on PEI and meeting her dad, finding Lantern Hill and living the way she'd always yearned to live, is a true home-coming for Jane. It's her loyalties, to her mother and father, that are torn. And watching over everything like a great big spider is Grandmother, pulling everyone's strings.
When I first read this, growing up on a farm in Tasmania, it was very like being in PEI and Jane's love for the island really made me see my own island state with fresh eyes. I had never seen Toronto or knew anything about it except that it was in Canada somewhere, but the Toronto of the 1930s - in particular dark, gloomy, watchful 60 Gay (a fictional street) - figured hugely in my imagination. The massive old house itself was a larger-than-life character, one inseparable from Grandmother. It's rather like the mansion was Grandmother's "familiar". Watching Jane blossom once she was away from it, and seeing it slowly smother her mother, it takes the form of some kind of manifestation of all Grandmother is: controlling, oppressive, vindictive, manipulative, the opposite of everything that Jane experiences in PEI.
If Jane's life at 60 Gay reminds you somewhat of Valency and her relatives at family gatherings in The Blue Castle, you're not alone: there are similarities, especially with Jane's perfect and pretty cousin, Phyllis, who is so condescending, like Valency's cousin Olive. But the comparison is a small one and doesn't detract from the novel's strengths. I think the oppressive extended family, family misunderstandings and parents who feel resentful is something of a Montgomery trademark - I'm thinking not only of Jane and Valancy, but of Emily too.
I wondered, when I started re-reading this, if it would have the same effect on me as it did nearly 20 years ago (wow am I really that old?!), if the magic would still be there. It did, and it was. Such was Montgomery's ability to create these vivid landscapes and strong characters, and an emotional connection between story and reader, that the magic was very much still there.