Koehler Books

Neon Jane Koehler Books

FILLING THE GAP between the experience of the sick and those living healthy lives in remission, Neon Jane follows twenty-four-year-old Maia's journey to move forward from her childhood cancer experience as she is haunted by a spunky, ghostlike, thirteen-year-old cancer patient named Jane.

The two have an inseparable bond and complicated friendship as Maia takes on the role of Jane's caretaker. Representing Maia as a child, Jane pressures Maia to be a better, more successful person in the name of childhood cancer. Maia argues back through personal reflections about cancer's ongoing presence in her healthy adult life, and her struggle to move forward from the experience.

As Maia looks for a genetic explanation for her previous cancer, she uncovers the story of her uncle Jason, a famous baroque musician who drowned in his twenties. Through her uncle's story and new complications with Jane's health, Maia contemplates what it means to live a full life, and whether it is time to let go of the cancer experience that has defined her for so long.