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An intelligent, independent woman is the new heroine of Julian Barnes's novel. No one was neutral about Elizabeth Finch: she was either adored or demonised, or friends with her all her life, or slandered behind her back. Barnes has created not a biography of one person, but rather an essay on intellectual history, where Anatole France, Konstantinos Cavafy and even Adolf Hitler act alongside Julian the Apostate. This time, the British novelist poses a teasing question: what if Europe had not become Christian, choosing instead to embrace ancient polytheism? Would we have been happier? Would we have avoided at least some of the mistakes of history? Elizabeth Finch knows the answers.