My Policeman by Bethan Roberts depicts a complex love triangle in 1950s Brighton

Roberts’ dramatic novel, first published in the UK in 2012 and now adapted for a forthcoming film starring Harry Styles, Emma Corrin, and David Dawson, poignantly depicts a love triangle that tears apart three lives.

In 1950s Brighton, England, schoolteacher Marion Taylor has had a longtime crush on her friend’s older brother, the blond, athletic Tom Burgess. They grow close as he gives her swimming lessons, but Marion ignores signs that something is amiss.

To achieve respectability and hide his romantic relationship with museum curator Patrick Hazelwood, Tom, a police constable, marries Marion. Jealousy soon rears its head.

Roberts tells the story through Patrick’s journal and Marion’s confessions, which she pens in 1999 while caring for Patrick following his stroke. Their accounts make for riveting but occasionally uncomfortable reading. Marion doesn’t seem particularly kind, while Patrick endangers himself by writing about his feelings and actions, since being gay was illegal at the time.

Both call Tom “my policeman,” and one senses love and defiant possessiveness in the word my. Scenes of seaside Brighton and the era’s repressive attitudes are skillfully rendered.

My Policeman is published by Penguin this month in the US; I reviewed it for Booklist in July. According to IMDB, the film version is currently in post-production. Read more about the film at Vogue UK.