This story takes us to the 1980’s in Melbourne where a young Sri Lankan woman is undertaking a post-doctoral study of Virginia Woolf. She has moved from Sydney leaving behind a broken relationship. She considers herself a feminist but embarks on a relationship with Kit, who is her friend, Olivia’s boyfriend. Despite his insistence that he and Olivia have a deconstructed relationship, the woman is torn with her guilt for Olivia and her own desires. 

“Sometimes jealousy was a visitor from an alien galaxy that had nothing to do with me. Sometimes it was a frightening growth in my body for which science hadn’t discovered a cure.”

The woman contrasts Virginia Woolf’s middle-class Englishness with the tea pickers in colonial countries whose work in abysmal conditions enabled Woolf to the lifestyle she had at the time. And I found this to be an intriguing along with the other themes of racism and colonialism.

The characters are never completely likeable and it almost reads like a memoir. I found the story meandered in parts and found it difficult to connect with the narrator.

An okay read but not a memorable one.