That Green Eyed Girl by Julie Owen Moylan

 

That Green Eyed Girl by Julie Owen Moylan.

Published 12th May 2022 by Penguin Michael Joseph.

From the cover of the book:

1955
In an apartment on the Lower East Side, school teachers Dovie and Gillian live as lodgers. Dancing behind closed curtains, mixing cocktails for two, they guard their private lives fiercely. Until someone guesses the truth . . .

1975
Twenty years later in the same apartment, Ava Winters is keeping her own secret. Her mother has become erratic, haunted by something Ava doesn't understand - until one sweltering July morning, she disappears.

Soon after her mother's departure, Ava receives a parcel. Addressed simply to 'Apartment 3B', it contains a photo of a woman with the word 'LIAR' scrawled across it.

Ava does not know what it means or who sent it.

But if she can find out then perhaps she'll discover the answers she is seeking - and meet the woman at the heart of it all . . .

***********

It's 1955, and school teachers Dovie and Gillian live together in their New York apartment. To outside eyes they must be careful to appear as friends, but within the safety of their home they are free to express the love they feel for each other. Until their busy-body colleague Judith guesses the truth and uses what she knows for her own ends...

Twenty years later, in the same apartment, fifteen-year-old Ava Winter is struggling to cope with her mother's increasingly erratic behaviour, following the breakdown of her parents' marriage. Although their marriage was never a happy one, what has happened between her parents has dredged up painful memories from her mother's past that Ava cannot fathom, and she is desperate to keep the current situation away from prying eyes. 

Then a mysterious parcel arrives at the Winters' door from Paris, containing personal items, letters, and a photograph of three women with the word 'LIAR' scrawled across it. Curious about who these women are, Ava decides to embark on a quest to find out all she can about them. Perhaps if she can solve the riddle, she might also be able to find a way to the answers she seeks to her own questions?

That Green Eyed Girl is a beautifully written and evocative novel, that moves between the timelines of 1955 and 1975 in the same New York apartment. In 1955, we are immersed in the very private love affair between Dovie and Gillian, and their constant fear that their lives will be destroyed should anyone discover the truth about their relationship. In 1975, Ava has cause to keep secrets too: struggling with all the conflicting feelings of her age, she now finds herself alone with a mother in the full throes of a breakdown. A mysterious parcel sets Ava on a course of action that brings the timelines together.

This is the kind of book that pulls you in from the very start and gives your emotions a thorough workout. Owen Moylan does a stellar job of creating the perfect feelings of time and place for each of the periods, linking them with cleverly with recurring themes. The 1950s part of the tale brings home the heart-rending difficulties of same sex couples who wish to pursue relationships that are not only wrong in the eyes of the law, but also viewed as unnatural by society at large. There is such a poignancy in the tender way Dovie and Gillian are able to express their love for each other in the safety of their apartment - dancing, listening to Jazz, drinking whisky and enjoying the simple pleasures associated with being a couple - which contrasts starkly with how the must behave at work and in public for fear of detection. Owen Moylan does not shy away from describing the very dangerous consequences of discovery, showing the ways lives could be destroyed; the brutality of the police; and the disgusting forced 'treatments' intended to correct what was viewed as deviant behaviour, including the legacy of such 'cures'. 

The 1975 sections unfurl like a crossover between a coming of age and mystery tale, as Ava follows the clues to the identities of the women involved, while struggling to navigate her teenage feelings and traumatic home life. The themes of secrets and discrimination take on a different form for Ava, but they still pack a hefty emotional punch, and there are nicely conceived connections between her story and that of Dovie and Gillian that reveal themselves slowly as the novel progresses. I particularly enjoyed the way Owen Moylan uses objects to link the timelines together, making you fully aware of their significance in Dovie and Gillian's sad story. 

Some clever little twists bring the timelines together in a collision the brings about the opportunity for a long overdue reckoning, a realisation that love endures, and healing for more than one character. There is a lot of sadness threaded throughout the novel, but it leaves you with hope, and the ending had me in floods of cathartic tears.

There is a wonderful potency to Owen Moylan's writing, which I find very impressive for a debut novel - and my goodness, how you long to be in a smoke-filled New York Jazz bar with a glass of whisky in your hand after reading it. She has the ability to imbue a moment with such intensity, squeezing every ounce of emotional weight from it in a way that is powerfully affecting. I will be thinking about this book for a long time to come, and cannot wait to read what comes next from Julie Own Moylan.

That Green Eyed Girl is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Penguin Michael Joseph for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to take part in this blog tour.

About the author:

Julie Owen Moylan was born in Cardiff and has worked in a variety of jobs, from trainee hairdresser and chip shop attendant at sixteen to business management consultant and college lecturer in her thirties.

She then returned to education to complete her Master's degree in Film before going on to complete a further Master's degree in Creative Writing.

Julie is an alumna of the Faber Academy's Writing a Novel course. She lives in Cardiff with her husband and two cats.