© Baltos Lankos
Julia Glynn is the very model of a bourgeois Catholic wife, married to the richest man in town. When the condition of her crippled husband, Michael, worsens, she decides to follow the advice of their friend, Father Victor, and to go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. When Julia begins receiving a series of obscene anonymous letters detailing her sexual infidelities with Doctor Jim Lyndon, her husband's young nephew, her suspicions first fall on their manservant Stephen. But as the day of departure to Lourdes approaches, the heart of a forever watchful Irish small town is laid bare. The depiction of sexual need in 1950s Ireland in the novel led to its banning by the Censorship Board in 1961. Retitled The Chameleons, it was re-published by Panther Books in 1965 and sold over 100,000 copies in America. Lilliput Press reissued the work in Ireland in 2004 to restore Broderick to his rightful place alongside McGahern, O'Brien and O'Faolain. Their edition includes a translation of the preface to the French edition by Julien Green.
Weidenfeld & Nicholson 1961 and Lilliput Press 2004
Translated into: Lithuanian
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