War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength.

When I first read George Orwell’s 1984 back in school, I was part terrified, part mesmerised, and absolutely captivated by Orwell’s capacity for capturing this chilling vision of a future, totalitarian world presided over by the ominous and omnipresent Big Brother. So when I read about this retelling – after having recently read a retelling of a classic story that didn’t work for me at all – I was on the fence about whether or not to read it.

Although it’s been years since I read the original, Newman drew me straight back into that world in a voice and tone that struck me as largely authentic and true to the original; reviving the stilted, ridiculous language of Newspeak, the contradictory Doublethink, the feared Thought Police, the towering Ministry of Truth, the looming screens that watch everything, the terrifying Room 101, and the ultimate risk of becoming an unperson. However, a retelling wouldn’t be a retelling without some additions, fresh perspective, and a twist, and Newman manages these beautifully. Julia, the supporting character to the original’s lead Winston Smith, is brilliantly drawn.

Some re-tellings from the female perspective hold back nothing and offer up a female lead who is fearless, brilliant, indomitable; and while Julia shows moments of all these, as well as a delightful rebellious streak, we also see her desperately frightened, confused, vulnerable, exploited, and still in parts brainwashed by Big Brother’s rule, which is what makes this retelling so compelling and engrossing. It’s not a retelling offering up Julia as a newly revealed heroine who overcomes all her challenges; it’s a retelling imagining her side of the story, and the small and bigger ways in which she seeks to survive, in the terrible, fictional superstate of Oceania. Newman took on the major task, and gamble, that is retelling a classic and, for me, she absolutely nailed it.

***

Julia is published by Granta Publications on October 19th. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for my eARC.

***

Sandra Newman is the author of four previous novels; The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, (shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award), Cake, The Country of Ice Cream Star (longlisted for the Bailey’s Prize for Women’s Literature) and The Heavens. She co-authored the hugely successful How Not to Write a Novel with Howard Mittelmark. She has also written The Western Lit Survival Kit, Read This Next, and a memoir, Changeling. She lives in New York.