Julia

Name: Julia
Rating: 2.5 (5 reviews)

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

First published 2002

Amazon

2.5(5)

Julia is still a schoolgirl when she meets Peter, an older musician, and falls into a relationship with him despite the fact that he is married. What begins as an intense private attachment produces consequences neither of them can contain, forcing Julia to confront the difference between romantic intention and responsibility for other people's lives.

Set largely in Britain during the 1950s and 1960s, the novel follows love, guilt and attempted expiation across a period of changing social expectations. Harrod-Eagles treats the affair not as an isolated scandal but as an event whose effects persist for decades, exploring how memory and moral responsibility survive even as the society around the characters becomes less restrictive.