A Girl Called Jules by Milena Milani

La ragazza di nome Giulio (A Girl Named Jules) explores the psychological and sexual awakening of Jules, a young woman navigating identity, desire, and repression in fascist and postwar Italy. Raised by a cold, narcissistic mother and emotionally shaped by a series of female caretakers, Jules’s earliest and most formative attachments are with women. Chief among them is Lia, her governess in childhood, who offers both protection and manipulation. Lia urges Jules to distrust men and remain “pure,” even as she initiates Jules into a secretive and coercive physical relationship. This early experience leaves Jules both fascinated and troubled by the blurred boundaries between affection, control, and desire.

As Jules grows, her attraction to women continues to surface—tentative, unspoken, and often guilt-laden. In Senigallia, she forms an intense emotional connection with her new governess, Serafina. Their bond, filled with subtle physical gestures and a shared sense of isolation, culminates in a spontaneous kiss that Jules initiates. Yet, this too is fraught with ambiguity and shame, as Jules simultaneously pursues Serafina’s fiancé, Amerigo, in a confused attempt to understand her own needs.

Throughout the novel, Jules’s encounters with men—Lorenzo, the childhood friend; Amerigo, the adult seduction; Camillo, the tragic love; Franco, the intellectual partner—are sincere but ultimately fail to resolve her deep inner conflict. Her heterosexual relationships often mirror the emotional detachment and constraint instilled by her early experiences. While she seeks connection with men, her strongest attachments remain with women, even when those connections are painful, complex, or taboo.

Sexual difference, emotional duality, and alienation are central to Jules’s inner world. Her yearning for intimacy with women is in constant tension with societal expectations and the omnipresent voice of Catholic guilt. Her final, violent encounter with a man—an impulsive, self-destructive act—serves not as a rejection of heterosexuality, but as a crisis point that forces her to confront the fractured parts of herself.

By the novel’s end, Jules stands alone but aware, no longer suspended between competing desires or self-denial. Her journey charts a uniquely female and queer path through repression, trauma, longing, and fragile empowerment. La ragazza di nome Giulio offers a rare early depiction of a young woman’s conflicted sexual identity—especially her intimate, often fraught connections with other women—making it a significant, if long-overlooked, work in the canon of queer feminist literature.