Vladimir

One evening, a fifty-something literature professor invites her new and beautiful young colleague, Vladimir, to join her for a drink. Her husband is out a lot these days, having been suspended from their college amid accusations of inappropriate relationships with his former students.

However, as the professor attempts to disentangle herself from her husband's behaviour, it becomes clear that her desire for the new arrival might bring the couple's tinder-box world dangerously close to exploding . . .

Darkly funny and moving Vladimir, by Julia May Jonas, explores issues of sex, gender, power, and desire from its own unique perspective.

Review

Female ageing and desire, sexual agency in the era of #MeToo, the relationship between morality and art, even a nod to Stephen King's Misery: it's all here in this sexy stealthy slippery debut, one of the year's hottest reads. ― The Daily Mail

This deliciously dark American debut . . . A boisterous campus novel with an outrageously acerbic narrator, it delivers uncomfortable truths ― The Guardian

This impressive debut . . . A twisty and thought-provoking tale ― The Sunday Times/The Times

Haunted by the spirit of Nabokov, this sly satire challenges today’s “insistence on morality in art” ― The Daily Telegraph

This astonishing debut is anything but another #MeToo morality tale . . . I was utterly hooked . . . [by] this twisty, sexy, shocking treat of a novel . . . How on earth will Julia May Jonas better this? ― The Sunday Times

Darkly comic . . . Jonas’s novel is full of sly satire . . . The first-person narrative is beautifully rich, and the novel is playing enjoyable games with the ghost of Nabokov throughout ― The Daily Telegraph

Vladimir is peppered with subversions . . . Jonas artfully fashions a protagonist mired in contradictions . . . [An] intelligent knowing portrayal of a woman's midlife crisis ― The Observer

This slippery debut challenges to often electrifying effect the moral pieties concerning women, sex and power that have sprung up in the wake of #MeToo . . . A welcome addition to the growing number of #MeToo novels, many of which feel in comparison a little tired ― The Daily Mail

It is delicious to spend so much time with a narrator who wants the way this one does, who wants so badly she’ll send her life up in flames. ― Vanity Fair

Jonas's assured debut may be operating in Nabokov's long shadow, but it's difficult not to gobble up the unadorned, plot-driven prose, with its hints of kidnap and bondage, at a greedy pace ― The Literary Review

[An] engaging debut . . . [Jonas’s] storylines are full of nuance, loopholes, granular details that refuse easy definition ― The Irish Times

'Vladimir contains far too many uncomfortable truths to be merely fun, but . . . it is, by turns, cathartic, devious and terrifically entertaining.’ ― New York Times

About the Author

Julia May Jonas is a playwright and teaches theatre at Skidmore College. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her family. Vladimir is her debut novel.