Julia May Jonas

A provocative, razor-sharp, and timely debut novel about a beloved English professor facing a slew of accusations against her professor husband by former students—a situation that becomes more complicated when she herself develops an obsession of her own... “When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell that they also loved me.” And so we are introduced to our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose charismatic husband at the same small liberal arts college is under investigation for his inappropriate relationships with his former students. The couple have long had a mutual understanding when it comes to their extra-marital pursuits, but with these new allegations, life has become far less comfortable for them both. And when our narrator becomes increasingly infatuated with Vladimir, a celebrated, married young novelist who’s just arrived on campus, their tinder box world comes dangerously close to exploding. With this bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured debut, author Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the boundaries of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and wildly entertaining, Vladimir perfectly captures the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the nuances and the grey area between power and desire.

A Novel

Vladimir

Emma Hak-Kovacs

It was always that—a man could always make me feel worse than anything any woman could ever say to me. He could always make me despise myself, make me feel fundamentally self-conscious about my idiotic femininity and my pathetic peevishness, make me understand I was no match for the real power he possessed. In Texas, in Connecticut, in France, in New York, in Missouri, in Mexico City, in my kitchen, bathroom, living room, basement, bedroom, I could click mentally from slide to slide each time a man, with a well-aimed put-down, has made me feel essentially worthless.  

High Fidelity

kristie alexis

Nikkita

I could write more, work on my book, but instead I want to sit and stare at the light as it moves across him. I am aware of this moment as a perfect example of liminality. I am living in the reality before Vladimir wakes…The no-place-ness and no-time-ness of now. The pulsing presence of this moment between moments.

Inkmelt

Whenever I used to read about writers who "opened themselves to the voices" I used to roll my eyes, believing them sentimnental and overly precious. But in this moment, whether it was adrenaline or the survival instinct, I found my front brain receded and a story emerged that canme not so much from me as through me.

The invented worlds, all the made-up-ness and stolen-ness of fiction, all the characters—they felt like a meager and pitiful offering. I needed dates, facts, numbers, and statistics. Weapons. This is our world and this is what happened in it.

Picturing them in the cafeteria, I started to view their utensils as little pitchforks that they moved up and down. I understood not only the bonding that comes out of complaining but also the incredible sense of identity that comes with discovering why you think something is wrong. I wanted them to feel that fire, that was what college was for. They were enacting a right of all young people, unearthing what they felt were the systemic wrongs of the world. It was their right to look at us murderously, longing to stand where we stood. It was their right to believe that they could do our jobs better than we could. We, who had experienced enough bitterness in life to expect flaws, faults, and complexities in every situation we encountered. They had grown up with a constant stream of global warming and gun violence burbling on low from their parents’ radios as they were driven to and from soccer or clarinet. Their lives, for the most part (at least the majority of students who attended this liberal and very expensive college), were cloaked in the postmillennial blanket of peace and prosperity, while terrible threats loomed in the shadowy corners of the larger world. They were overpraised and overpressured.

“Well, I didn’t want to read your book. And then I was very jealous of you when I first started it. But then I realized it was very good, and when something’s very good, it doesn’t make me jealous, it makes me happy that it exists.”

“Your house is amazing,” he said, picking up a program of Frida Kahlo’s home in Mexico and turning it over in his hands.

“Well, it’s a document. Of time passed and things seen.”

“Subtlety achieves nothing,” she would say. “There’s no room for subtlety right now. There has to be right and wrong, and one has to decide and do it fast and not worry about anyone’s feelings.”

Vladimir quotes

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