Drawing Outside the Lines: A Julia Morgan Novel
The opening of the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge in May 1883 meant more to eleven-year-old Julia Morgan than to anyone else in her family—although in her California home, she and Papa have pored over every report of the design and construction. A train excursion to New York City, to help her grandmother pack for a move West, connects her with both the bridge and her parents’ adult cousin, “Pierre LeBrun, the architect.” As her passions coalesce around design, engineering, and the marvels of architecture, Cousin Pierre’s support of Julia’s path becomes essential. Can she resist her mother’s determination to have her enter society and make an early marriage? Is there room for her in a career where men expect to dominate, and a clever woman is both a competitor and a target?
Susan Austin’s writing, accessible to middle-grade reading skills yet rich with detail and motion, carries Julia’s story adeptly through high school challenges, negotiations with her mother, and eventually college years with attacks from many of her fellow students, all men. The engaging novel explores Victorian expectations and conditions, and the essential role of mentors and protectors for women reaching for new roles. Based closely on the career path of the real Julia Morgan, an award-winning designer, the book is also rich with Austin’s imagined life of emotions and challenges for this young woman whose personal life was not recorded.
Differing from many works of historical fiction that explore girls becoming women, Drawing Outside the Lines only brushes lightly across themes of romance or imagined homemaking. Instead, Julia’s passion for the elegance of math and architecture takes center stage in this highly satisfying narrative.
