Julia by Sandra Newman

 

Julia by Sandra Newman.

Published 19th October 2023 by Granta Books.

From the cover of the book:

London, chief city of Airstrip One, the third most populous province of Oceania. It's 1984 and Julia Worthing works as a mechanic fixing the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department at the Ministry of Truth. Under the ideology of IngSoc and the rule of the Party and its leader Big Brother, Julia is a model citizen - cheerfully cynical, believing in nothing and caring not at all about politics. She knows how to survive in a world of constant surveillance, Thought Police, Newspeak, Doublethink, child spies and the black markets of the prole neighbourhoods. She's very good at staying alive.

But Julia becomes intrigued by a colleague from the Records Department - a mid-level worker of the Outer Party called Winston Smith, she comes to realise that she's losing her grip and can no longer safely navigate her world.

Seventy-five years after Orwell finished writing his iconic novel, Sandra Newman has tackled the world of Big Brother in a truly convincing way, offering a dramatically different, feminist narrative that is true to and stands alongside the original. For the millions of readers who have been brought up with Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, here, finally, is a provocative, vital and utterly satisfying companion novel.

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Millions of readers have pored over George Orwell's seminal book Nineteen-Eighty-Four, which tells the unforgettable story of Winsto Smith's acts of defiance against Big Brother. It is a book that everyone should read at least once, and its themes have echoed through Dystopian literature (and real life) in the years since it was published in 1949. But what of the other character that shares in Winston Smith's small rebellion - Julia Worthing, the fiction department mechanic who becomes his partner in sex-crime?

In Julia, Sandra Newman reimagines the character whose fascination with Smith eventually brings about her own downfall. Newman faithfully follows the events of Orwell's original, and it is especially interesting when you are reading the scenes you know well from Smith's angle through Julia's eyes. But Newman also does much more, by offering the fresh insight of a female perspective on Orwell's grey vision, filling out so much of this world of hate and propaganda with swathes of colour - even if most of them are shades of blood red. From the way Julia hides her own un-Party like behaviour, to her relationship with the women she shares a hostel with, and how she becomes an instrument of the very Party she is not sure if she despises or loves, Newman draws you in. Julia is a complex character to like, and for all the moments she earns your admiration, there are an equal number in which her actions appal, but Newman does a sterling job of exploring how and why she acts as she does - and by the end of the book I was a fan of her strength and courage. In parallel, Smith comes out of this worse than he does in the original book, particularly when it comes to the consequences of his arrogance.

This is an engaging read, and I really enjoyed how Newman expands on Orwell's work to make the world of Airstrip One seem much more than a background against which a grim story plays out. We see more of London, get a better idea of how people live (and die) under the Party system, and Newman explores the gulf between the have and have nots well (both within the Party and among the Proles). There are moments when the story slows in pace, and I do think there could have been some nips and tucks from the time Julia is engaged in Big Brother's honeytrap operation to the time she and Smith are captured. but overall it flows well and has plenty of menace, as befits a book about Orwell's world. The ending is enigmatic and well conceived too, with a chilling message about the circular notion of political ideology.

This is beautifully written, provocative and dark. It makes an intriguing companion piece to Orwell's original, and also stands up well as a modern Dystopian thriller. Highly recommended!

Julia is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Granta Books for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review, and to Tandem Collective UK for inviting me to be part of the Julia readalong in Instagram.

About the author:

Sandra Newman is co-author of How Not To Write A Novel. She is the author of the novels The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done and Cake, as well as the forthcoming memoir Changeling. 

She has taught writing and literature at Temple University, Chapman University, and the University of Colorado, and has published fiction and non-fiction in Harper’s, Granta, and London’s Observer, Telegraph, and Mail on Sunday newspapers, among other journals and newspapers.