Julia

Newman (The Men) delivers a provocative feminist retelling of George Orwell’s 1984 from the perspective of Julia Worthing, a mechanic working on the machines in the Ministry of Truth’s Fiction Department, where she’s become a master at subverting surveillance. As a result, Julia enjoys a healthy clandestine sex life and averts the ever-present threat of the ironically named Ministry of Love’s “eyeless mice gnawing at her in the dark.” She soon becomes fascinated by Records Department colleague and fellow apostate Winston Smith, whom she dubs “old Misery.” Unlike Orwell’s Julia, Newman’s is dominant and fastidious. Still, Newman stays true to Orwell’s dystopian details as she places Julia at the center of 1984’s plot points, such as having her feign allegiance and alliance to Big Brother and avoid even the suggestion of malfeasance and the horrors of Room 101 at all costs, until she can’t. Julia’s narrative voice is refreshingly fearless as she navigates her way around the Party’s nefarious thought policing, and a wicked plot twist spins the original narrative on its ear. Newman adds a fresh coat of menacing gray to Orwell’s gloomy world. (Oct.)