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| 5 Oct 2026 | |
| Bradfieldian Stories: Feature Article |
Last Monday evening, Bradfield Film Studies team; Jane Stables, Roger Keely and Abby Gregory attended Julia Merican's (J 12-17) UK book launch for her novella 'Plain Things for Lustrous'. After Bradfield Julia read English at St Anne’s College, Oxford where she has fond memories of the Hartfield House library. Now living in London as a writer, researcher and editor, ‘Plain Things for Lustrous' is her debut publication;
‘A young woman meets her father for the first time as they set out on a road trip through her hometown. Over late-night suppers, seaside visits, tea in the highlands, and cave treks near where her mother grew up, they talk about books, belief, and lingering attachments. As the landscape shifts, so does the delicate space between them, and long-buried memories begin to surface.
Both an elegy for lost time and a cartography of reunion between strangers, Plain Things for Lustrous is a psychological portrait of love, inheritance, and the luminous power of what we reveal and conceal in the stories we tell each other.’
In an interview with Options, taken from the August 2026 article in ‘The Edge Malaysia’ she explained the inspiration behind the work ‘I was really interested about what it might be like to meet your parent, or your child, for the first time when you’re both adults. The idea sort of grabbed me by the heart and didn’t let go; so, I thought I’d exorcise it on the page. What kind of relationship could you have with a father who never raised you? Could you become friends with the daughter who didn’t hold you back from living the life you might otherwise have longed for? What about the guilt and the resentment and the simmering anger that might stand in the way of all that?’
For her next book Julia is working on a non-fiction publication that will be ‘a blend of art criticism and personal memoir’
'Plain Things for Lustrous' is being sold for £11.99 by Antigone and a copy has also been donated to the Bradfield library