Julia Sutton

A Sea of Straw Julia Sutton

Will a man walk two thousand kilometres for a woman? In 1967, Ze? will. Salazar's Portugal has become a prison for him.

1966: When Jody, young mother and designer from the north of England, arrives on the Lisbon coast, she brings the lure of 'Swinging London' to Portuguese painter Ze?'s existing dreams of freedom. A nascent love is interrupted when, back in England, husband Michael forces her to choose between their 2-year-old daughter Anna and Ze?. And Ze?, at home in Lisbon and grounded by the state's secret police, can only wait.

For both Jody and Ze?, love is revolution. And personal and political threads weave their story, a period piece set amid the then socially conservative North of England, the light and rugged landscapes of modern Portugal, and the darkness of the dying years of Europe's longest-running dictatorship. A Sea of Straw, with its pervading atmosphere of saudades, is a quest for love in revolutionary times.