Briony Tallis Timeline & Summary

As a thirteen-year-old budding writer in an upper-class family in 1935, Briony witnesses and is disturbed by the courtship of her older sister Cecilia and her childhood friend Robbie Turner.
When Briony's cousin, Lola, is assaulted, she concludes incorrectly that Robbie was the rapist, and denounces him to the police, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment.
By the time she is eighteen in 1940, Briony has figured out that she made a mistake about Robbie and feels all kinds of guilty about it.
She becomes a nurse in training, partially to atone for her screw-up, and helps treat the first round of wounded soldiers returning from World War II. She also begins to write seriously, and gets positive feedback on a novella about Robbie and Cecilia.
She goes to her sister to try to apologize. She meets Robbie there, and promises them both to write a long letter explaining what she did and why.
At 77, Briony is a successful writer facing memory loss and eventually death due to vascular dementia. She has written a novel—the book we're reading— about Robbie and Cecilia. She reveals that she has changed some details of the plot, and that she will not be able to publish until after her death for legal reasons.