Julia

Julia, the fourth book of the author, departs from former settings; the protagonist comes from the homey, quiet and safe neighborhood of middle-class Maple Street, Any Town. She is raised with middle-class values and limitations. However, Julia detours from the path most girls of her time had chosen, and builds a formidable business venture. But in her case marriage and career suffer a head-on collision, which almost throws her off course. Conflicts had losses make her life difficult; a child on the other hand gives deep meaning. While she picks up the shards of her life and tells the world that she is not about to have a nervous breakdown any time soon, she also learns to say no, and refuses to continue the role of the accommodating wife, who can be used and manipulated by a man. He is not any worse than the rest of his generation; just like she, he too was raised with a set of values that were no longer justifiable in the twentieth century. The plot is simple, the psychology complex. She is quintessentially the embodiment of the romantic American dream - but is also the incarnation of the ambivalence and anguish, which thinking American women too often have to face. She rises above the desolation and loss, and uses her own power and energies to fashion her life according to her own vision. She does not lose hope, and despite the events which almost derail her, the absolute faith in herself never falters. She is a thoroughly modern woman of her own making. The denouement is satisfactory, not because she reaches her goals on the last page, but because the success she achieves is of her own making. The sparkling and exciting love, which is her ultimate reward, is not the result of sudden infatuation, happenstance, or romantic fantasies, but is based on the solid ground of knowing and respecting each other. It is a story for modern women, who often have to face those issues, which their mothers preferred to sweep under the carpet.