The Last Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd

Ellery Lloyd has written a nuanced, multi-layered literary mystery thriller The final act of Juliette Willoughby. The author’s name is a pseudonym for the English author couple Paul Vlitos and Colleen Lyons. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Greenwich and has already written two novels. She brings weight to the surrealist art history at the heart of the many enigmatic secrets from her studies at Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as insider knowledge of Dubai that she acquired after working there as a journalist.

Despite the predominant contemporary concrete and glass setting of London and the United Arab Emirates, this gripping novel is atmospheric and full of Gothic undertones that should appeal to a wide range of readers who appreciate haunting 19th-century fiction.^th Century, mid-20th century^th Century and present.

Attention fans of Charlotte Brontë, Daphne du Maurier, Victoria Holt and Kate Atkinson! This finely crafted, intricately constructed work of fiction offers a delicious, heady mix of nail-biting suspense, art forgery and theft, and murderous crimes of passion. This rich family drama involves an eccentric squire with an over-the-top passion for Egyptology and an obsessive study of funerary texts that could prove fatal to the unwary.

The mysterious life of Juliette Willoughby

The Last Act of Juliette Willoughby has closely linked three crucial periods, beginning shortly after the groundbreaking Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in 1938 at the Galérie Beaux-Arts in Paris, continuing in England at Cambridge University in 1990 and ending in present-day Dubai. They are linked by the physical yet almost ghostly presence of an elusive Surrealist artist named Juliette Willoughby, the scorned daughter of an aristocratic, wealthy and eccentric family who created a masterpiece Self-portrait as a sphinx.

The painting was only displayed for one day at this prestigious art exhibition before being removed at the behest of its creator. The shocking images of enigmatic puzzles threatening to reveal dark family secrets of this runaway young heiress horrified her family, while critics praised her work and were mesmerized by her astonishing achievement. Not long after, Juliette Willoughby and her married lover twice her age, the painter Oskar Erlich, were killed in an unexplained fire in their studio/one-bedroom apartment in a Paris attic flat. His jealous, estranged wife was initially suspected but later cleared of guilt.

Exploring the Surrealist Movement

The 1938 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme was the culmination of a series of group exhibitions by several artists that had begun in 1925. The Surrealist literary movement emerged earlier in the century, around 1910. Group exhibitions had been held in several cities around the world, but none as ambitious as the 1938 exhibition, which featured 229 works by 60 artists. It was a unique, comprehensive, and innovative art experience, decades ahead of its time, with a whimsical theme of “water and foliage” designed and lit to intentionally evoke disturbing dreams and experiences. Artists involved included Salvador Dali, whose courtyard installation “Taxi Pluvieux” (“Rain Taxi”) shocked visitors with two mannequins; a man with a shark head and a woman in an evening dress, placed in an old car garlanded with flowers and plants and constantly soaked by pipes simulating a persistent rainstorm insidethe vehicle.

Max Ernst, Man Ray, Andre Breton, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy and related artists such as the Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró also participated. It was a bizarre scene with mannequins scattered about, 1,200 dusty coal sacks hanging from the ceiling and floors covered in sand and sawdust; grotto-like exhibition spaces were dimly lit so visitors had to bring flashlights. Paintings, sculptures and photographs hung on walls and revolving doors.

This was a happening, a scene, a triumph, and to his great dismay, Juliette Willoughby’s work was attracting great attention while the latest work by her established artist friend Oskar Erlich was being rejected by the critics.

During the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist periods in France, most of the women involved, with the exception of Americans Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, were wives, mistresses, models, or a combination of the two. Several successful female Surrealists were involved in this exhibition.

Secrets, lies and a lost masterpiece

There are three viewpoints with a common narrative in The Last Act of Juliette Willoughby. These main characters are: Juliette Willoughby, Patrick Lambert and Dr. Caroline Cooper, an art history professor at her alma mater, Cambridge University, whose main field of study and doctoral research focused on the female artists of the 1930s Surrealist movement. Her 1998 biography of British artist Juliette Willoughby is considered the definitive account of the life, work and death of this little-known Surrealist painter.

As the novel opens, her lost masterpiece has just been sold for £42 million in a Dubai gallery. Moments later, Patrick is arrested in the gallery and charged with the murder of Henry Willoughby, the last known heir to this fascinating, difficult family. Patrick Lambert, the gallery owner, and Caroline share a long history that stretches back to 1990, when they met as students at Cambridge, and continues through their complicated relationship, later marriage, divorce, and their current reunion in the UAE. Patrick and Caroline first became close through her dissertation supervisor, Alice Long.

Curiously, this elderly woman is not a lecturer but has written major books on Man Ray, Brassaï and photojournalism. She was formerly a press photographer for major publications and has arcane knowledge of the mysterious Miss Willoughby. Caroline Cooper must have passed an unspoken test when she was assigned to investigate the Willoughby family legacy; a collection of Egyptological reference materials in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.

In the chaotic, uncatalogued jumble of battered boxes was a treasure trove of a necklace, a passport, and a vitally important diary that had belonged to Juliette Willoughby. The Willoughby family history is tangled in mysteries of missing persons and suspected but unsolved murders; the deepest, darkest secrets are revealed as the layers peel away in this fast-paced novel.

There are many unanswered questions, not least of which is: “How could there be two nearly identical, authenticated versions of the lost masterpiece?” Self-portrait as a sphinx?“This reviewer does not wish to reveal any further details of the story or the roles of the minor characters in this fascinating The final act of Juliette Willoughby. Ellery Lloyd has written a book full of surprises at a pace that may take the reader’s breath away and keep them awake all night long.

About Ellery Lloyd:

Collette Lyons is a journalist and editor, former content director of Elle (UK) and editorial director at Soho House. She has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph and the Sunday Times.

Paul Vlitos is the author of two novels: Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day is Like Sunday. He is Programme Director of English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Surrey.