The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd
Ellery Lloyd has written a richly nuanced, densely layered literary mystery thriller The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby. The author’s name is a pseudonym for the English husband-and- wife writing team of Paul Vlitos and Colleen Lyons. He is a professor of creative writing at the University of Greenwich and has previously written two novels. She adds gravitas to the surrealist art history at the center of the multiple puzzling secrets from her studies at Trinity College, Cambridge as well as insider knowledge of Dubai after working as a journalist there.
Despite the predominant contemporary concrete and glass settings in London and the United Arab Emirates, this gripping novel is atmospheric, rife with gothic overtones that should appeal to a broad spectrum of readers who enjoy haunting fiction of the 19th century, mid-20th century and the present.
Alert fans of Charlotte Brontë, Daphne du Maurier, Victoria Holt and Kate Atkinson! This finely crafted, intricately plotted work of fiction offers a delicious, heady combination of thrilling suspense, art forgeries and art theft in addition to murderous crimes of passion. This rich familial drama includes an eccentric lord of the manor with an over-the-top fervor for Egyptology and obsessive study of funerary texts that could prove deadly to the unwary.
The Enigmatic Life of Juliette Willoughby
The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby has tightly bound three pivotal time periods beginning not long after the seminal 1938 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme at the Galérie Beaux-Arts in Paris, resuming in 1990 in England at Cambridge University and concluding in present day Dubai. They are linked by the physical and yet almost ghostly presence of an elusive surrealist artist named Juliette Willoughby, the disdained daughter of an aristocratic, wealthy and eccentric family who created a masterpiece Self-Portrait as Sphinx.
The painting was exhibited for one day only at this most prestigious art show before being removed at the behest of its creator. The shocking images of puzzling riddles threaten to reveal dark family secrets of this runaway young heiress horrified her family while the critics lauded her work captivated by her astonishing achievement. Not long after, Juliette Willoughby and her twice-her-age married lover, painter Oskar Erlich, perished in an unexplained fire in their studio/bedsitter Parisian garret. His jealous estranged wife was initially suspected but subsequently cleared of culpability.
Exploring the Surrealist Movement
The 1938 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme was the culmination of a series of collective exhibitions of multiple artists that began in 1925. The surrealist literary movement originated earlier in the century circa 1910. Group exhibitions had taken place in several world cities but none as ambitious as the one in 1938 which featured 229 works by 60 artists. It was a unique, immersive and innovative art experience decades ahead of its time with a whimsical theme of “water and foliage” designed and lit to deliberately evoke disturbing dreams and experiences. Among the artists involved were Salvador Dali whose installation “Taxi Pluvieux” (‘Rain Cab’) in the courtyard shocked visitors with two mannequins; a man with a shark’s head and a woman in evening dress placed in an ancient car garlanded with flowers and vegetation continually drenched by pipes simulating a continuous rain storm inside the vehicle.
Max Ernst, Man Ray, Andre Breton, René Magritte, Yves Tanguy and related artists such as Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró also participated. It was a bizarre scene with mannequins strewn about, 1200 dusty coal bags suspended from the ceiling and the floors covered with sand and sawdust; grotto-like exhibition rooms were dimly lit requiring visitors to carry flashlights. Paintings, sculptures and photographs were hung on walls and revolving doors.
This was a happening, a scene, a triumph and much to his dismay, Juliette Willoughby’s work produced a sensation while her established artist lover Oskar Erlich’s latest work was dismissed by critics.
During the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist eras in France the vast majority of women involved, with the notable exceptions of American Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot, were wives, mistresses, models or some combination thereof. This exhibition included a number of successful women surrealists as participating artists.
Secrets, Lies, and a Lost Masterpiece
There are three points of view with shared narration presented in The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby. These primary characters are: Juliette Willoughby, Patrick Lambert and Dr. Caroline Cooper, an art history professor at her alma mater Cambridge University whose chief area of study and doctoral thesis focused on the women artists in the 1930’s Surrealist movement. Her 1998 publication of a biography of British artist Juliette Willoughby is considered to be the definitive account of this little known Surrealist painter’s life, work and death.
When the novel opens her lost masterpiece has just been sold at a Dubai gallery for $42 million pounds. Moments later at the gallery, Patrick is arrested and charged with the murder of Henry Willoughby, the last known heir of this intriguing, difficult family. Patrick Lambert, the gallery owner, and Caroline share a long history dating to 1990 when they met as students at Cambridge and continuing through their complicated relationship, eventual marriage, divorce and current reunion in the UAE. Patrick and Caroline were initially brought closer together through their dissertations supervisor Alice Long.
Curiously, this elderly woman is not on the faculty but wrote significant books on Man Ray, Brassaï and photojournalism. She was a former press photographer for major publications and possesses an arcane knowledge of the mysterious Miss Willoughby. Caroline Cooper must have passed an unspoken test as she was guided to examine the Willoughby Family Bequest; a collection of Egyptological reference material contained at Cambridge’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Within the disorganized, uncatalogued mess of battered cartons was a treasure trove consisting of a necklace, passport and all-important journal that had belonged to Juliette Willoughby. The Willoughby family history is mired in mysteries concerning missing persons, suspected yet unsolved murders; the deepest darkest secrets revealed as layers peel off in this fast-paced work of fiction.
There are many unanswered questions, not the least of which is “how could there be two nearly identical, authenticated versions of the lost masterpiece Self-Portrait as Sphinx?” This reviewer does not want to give away any additional details of the story nor discuss the roles of the supporting characters in the fascinating The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby. Ellery Lloyd has written a book full of surprises with a pace that may leave the reader breathless and awake all night.
About Ellery Lloyd:
Collette Lyons is a journalist and editor, the 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 previous novels, Welcome to the Working Week and Every Day is Like Sunday. He is the program director for English Literature with Creative Writing at the University of Surrey.
