Portrait of Julia : a novel

Summary: Portrait of Julia is a fascinating account of a young woman in the midst of a world in transformation. In 1920, Julia Robertson is a beautiful young war widow, aware of the radical new ideas challenging the settled thinking of post-Victorian Canada. New ways of thinking -- about the human unconscious through Freud and Jung, about sexuality, about women as well as about religion -- infused modern painting, music, and literature. Julia struggles with her conscience over the man she most trusts while being passionately infatuated with another, an Englishman, who leads her into the orbit of the young and charming Prince of Wales. Leaving behind the stuffy world of Halifax, she goes to London and Paris and then the South of France where she rekindles her close friendship with one of the great Canadian painters of the period, J. W. Morrice. She becomes part of Morrice's inner social circle of artists and admirers, among them Henri Matisse. Julia's progressive ideas are put to the test when she has to resolve a dilemma.