Many of us, in any case, know by now that the narrative is filtered though the labyrinthine mind-ride of a 58-year old, eccentric English Literature professor. Whose husband John (she, conversely, remains unnamed – by choice, it seems, as the author herself claims), also professor and chair at the same American college, is accused of being a ‘lecherous pervert’, having acted upon his desire to engage in sexual relations with his students.

That would seem to be the plot of the narration, were it not for the fact that the narrator demands to impose her voice at every turn-of-the-page: more often than not, this highly troubling circumstance – which at the surface does not bother her, not really and truly, but it affects her own position within the department – is cast into oblivion. This is where Vladimir comes in: an obsession – made palpable, exhilarating, yet self-draining all in one (so much exciting Nabokov in this!) – for this forty-year old newly appointed lecturer slash experimental novelist, whose comparative youth and comparative prudishness seem to be the antidote for her inly harboured despair.

There is much to absolutely love about this novel: the wry, irreverent, and self-ironising tone, the complex treatment of (self-)awareness and (self-)righteousness that arises from a sharp, clear-eyed deconstruction of lust, power, sexual politics, and academia. But most of all, I would say, it is the levels of vulnerability the novel allows for, through the absence-presence of Vladimir, and through the narrator’s erratic, immersive, contradictory narration. Its consideration of moral questions, in this respect, result prismatic and non-conclusive, rather than simplistic. This is no cautionary tale, as some are wanting to suggest, but rather a messy – because it cannot be otherwise – immersion into the intricacies of human desire and the ache of the self to be someone, in an ever-annihilating world.

Vladimir, it cannot be denied, is heavily engaged with the political context of the (post-)sexual revolution, and frames the hot debate around the various waves of feminism accordingly. The following is the narrator’s main tirade, that points to a deep desire for the female to be what she needs to be:

Now, however, young women have apparently lost all agency in romantic entanglements. Now my husband was abusing his power, never mind that power is the reason they desired him in the first place. Whatever the current state of my marriage may be, I still can’t think about it all without my blood boiling. My anger is not so much directed toward the accusations as it is toward the lack of self-regard these women have—the lack of their own confidence. I wish they could see themselves not as little leaves swirled around by the wind of a world that does not belong to them, but as powerful, sexual women interested in engaging in a little bit of danger, a little bit of taboo, a little bit of fun. With the general, highly objectionable move toward a populist insistence of morality in art, I find this post hoc prudery offensive, as a fellow female. I am depressed that they feel so guilty about their encounters with my husband that they have decided he was taking advantage of them. I want to throw them all a Slut Walk and let them know that when they’re sad, it’s probably not because of the sex they had, and more because they spend too much time on the internet, wondering what people think of them.

(let’s take a moment to admit that it is indeed funny, too.)

However (and wanting to move on to more serious matters), this bold and brutal viewpoint is immeasurably nuanced throughout the narrative. The vision certainly persists, but at its highest level, it carries out the true purpose of its project: questioning and overturning assumptions, thus submitting itself, too, to scrutiny.

Brilliant self-reflexivity on Jonas’s part here, assisted to be sure by her expertise in the theatrical, which is here reinvented in intelligent means and ways. It is all-too-clear to me that Jonas spent much time with her musings on writing. No coincidence in having all characters be failed, aspiring, experimental, or bestselling writers themselves. I personally found this very striking, and it does marvellously tally with the character-formation of academics who work in the humanities whilst dabbling in writing themselves, and trying to also survive in the process. There is this profound, ‘orgasmic’ yearning for writing to happen, that extends the theme of obsession epitomised by Vladimir. Between the slippery quality of insight, and the chaotic magma that their life is made of, writing is what these characters turn to. Writing itself, possibly, constituting that transitional space in which they are able to unpack the conditionings of the world they inhabit as well as their own self-fabricated illusions, such that their own individuality can be allowed to occupy centre stage.

Bearing all this in mind, I found that the end evocation of the Jane Eyre ending did not quite work for a knowing novel that is far more complex and layered than I could here begin to convey. There must have been some conflicts of interest, in any case: the cover, for one thing, is absolutely detestable and misleading. (I was fortunate enough to be granted access to the beautiful and powerful cover-version that will be published on the 22nd of May.)

That being said, ‘let me go mad in my own’ is all the narrator asks for. And we will leave her to it. Because this is one Top Novel of the year.

A note to Julia May Jonas: we stand here, waiting – fairly impatiently, probably, but please do take all the time you need – to be compelled, captivated, drawn in by your next (when? how? what?) narrative.

4.5 stars.

Thanks go to Net Galley and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read and review this brilliant book. All thoughts expressed here are my own.

Vladimir was a wild ride that had me hooked from page one. Following an older woman's obsession with a new staff member at the college, she works at. Vladimir, like the title suggests, takes full focus for this book. From lustful fantasies and seduction, breakdowns of relationships, and a complex mother and daughter relationship, this book is full of everything you don't want to read about but you can't stop reading.

I really don't know what to say about this book. I'm glad I read it, but I think only because i have very specific interests in female sexuality and in power imbalances in relationships. I really liked the way it was written, and felt I had a good understanding of the characters for the majority of the book. However I felt that the author often spent too long on bits that didn't need that level of contemplation, and too little on parts that needed way more. I do not understand the lead's decision in the cabin, and feel it makes her a dramatically different character than she is otherwise represented. The line towards the end about her being seen as a kink was incredibly interesting and I would have loved to have read more about that. The way the plot wrapped up in the cabin and for Sid was bizarre and felt very unrealistic. I'm going to give this a 3, but I am really unsure about this.
Also for the attention of the publisher - the line 'Bewildered, he told her to go to back to AA' was in my copy, and 'go to back' is incorrect.

Wow loved it! 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….

Everything I expected this to be and also somehow nothing like I thought - this was a fantastic read that I will be revisiting time and time again I'm sure. I will definitely be reading more from Julia May Jonas.

The older woman and the Younger man ..... power is sexy and the idea of this is bringing the two of them together... it is sexy, witty, and dark in places... It shuns the idea that mature women are over the hill... It brings the idea of it to the surface and explores the growing desire she has for Vladimir

Highly recommended especially if you are a mature lady, which i am one of them

I was drawn to this book on account of the premise and blurb. It's the first person account of an unnamed protagonist; a woman in her 50s, and a well-liked lecturer whose husband John (also a lecturer at the same university) is under fire and facing the consequences of previous relationships he'd had with students.

I found the perspective surprising and very interesting. Our protagonist is on her husband's side - they were in an open marriage, and from her perspective the women were all of legal age and consented. It's a really stark and interesting exploration of the nature of relationships steeped in power imbalances. I think that I expected the novel to be more centered around John and his transgressions. Instead, the protagonist develops an infatuation with a young, new member of staff named Vladimir and a lot of her story revolves around her fantasies and plans to ensnare him.

A lot of the language used in the novel was very blunt and honest. I spent a lot of the time oscillating wildly between various emotions towards the narrator. She was delightfully unreliable and her logic and decision making often had me aghast; I loved to hate her, but also found nuggets of relatability in her narcissistic monologues. The examination of the relationship between sex, body dysmorphia, the aging female body and notions of physical desirability was truly unique and insightful. Add to that the questions of power dynamics and a comparison of her pursuit of Vladimir and John's pursuit of students and the result is this remarkably profound work of literature.

I did find that in the middle of the novel, the plot seemed to pause whilst Jonas focused on building up the tension and fully established the narrator's obsessive thoughts. I did enjoy this but did find myself growing bored. However I am glad I stuck with it because the ending took a bit of an unexpected turn...

Overall I'm really glad to have read this. It's a perfect book to read that gives opposing viewpoints to novels like My Dark Vanessa; it was hard not to draw comparisons and analysing these differences was something I really enjoyed. I would definitely recommend this.

Thank you so much to Macmillan / Simon & Schuster / NetGalley for the ARC!

For the most part, I thoroughly enjoyed Vladimir, although before I started reading, I expected the focus to be more on the husband than the wronged wife, The reason I’m giving this four, rather than five stars is because I found last 10-20% of the novel implausible and not in keeping with the style of the rest. It’s certainly worth giving this a go though!

BOOK REVIEW / Vladimir / Julia may Jonas

A shift in main character trends are welcome. The last year has been inundated with characters like me, socially mobile mid twenties girls, attempting to adult in some capacity, and often failing at it too. Sad girls have taken over our lives and the fatigue of the genre was getting to me.

Vladimir takes on a new position, middle aged women going rogue. We meet a professor of a small liberal college at a crucial moment. A post me-too reckoning on campus brings her husband, another much loved English professor, to the forefront of controversy for his involvement with graduate students in decades prior.

To say this is a book about the sexual politics of university campuses is to do a disservice to Jonas’ reckoning with the middling years of a single woman’s life. She narrowly avoids the scorned woman trope by having the marriage an open, less a betrayal and more a moral conundrum. The complexities of desire are felt fully by our nameless protagonist as she wrestles with lust over a younger novelist, the idea of playing homewrecker herself and the guilt by association that the next generation of university feminists wish to paint her with.

In some ways it’s a typical character study narrative, with the moshfeghian comparisons pretty well justified. The interest for me at least, lay within the confines of a body owned by someone older, a woman with plenty more lives lived the stories she could tell with it.

Read via netgalley, out soon with @picadorbooks

More than anything, this unruly debut is great fun to read: Our 58-year-old protagonist is a professor for English literature at a mildly prestigious, small liberal arts college. Her slightly older husband with whom she has an open relationship is the head of the department, but he is now facing disciplinary measures as seven former students have come forward, claiming that they had a relationship with him - a consensual one, mind you, but one with an obvious power imbalance. Meanwhile, the protagonist develops an obsession with 40-year-old junior professor Vladimir and reminisces about her own former exploits as well as her husbands affairs. To her, generation snowflake is acting anti-feminist.

Sure, there are some parallels to Lolita, and both the protagonist and her husband sometimes play the role of Humbert Humbert, but sometimes, in the flashbacks, also that of Lolita (as seen by Humbert!). Feminist questions take the center stage though: Is the protagonist an enabler? Is she oppressed? Is the husband an abuser or the victim of new standards that didn't apply when the deeds in question happened? And what's the dynamic between Vladimir and his wife? In the background, we also learn about the power dynamics in the lesbian relationship of the protagonist's daughter.

Other issues arise as well: Does the protagonist dream of being Vladimir? He's a promising author, she is a failed one, he is still relatively young, well trained (aaaaaabs) and groomed, she is (and has always been) very harsh on her now aging body. The generational disparities, especially when it comes to communication standards, between the professor and students become apparent, and the evil side of woke culture (people being socially sentenced without trial) is on full display.

When it comes to further reading that reflects the latest moral contemplations regarding relationships between professors and students, I recommend Amia Srinivasan who, in The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, offers an essay about just that topic: “On Not Sleeping with Your Students”, and the title already suggests her position - her reasoning is well-worth checking out.

The last third of Jonas' novel is unrealistic and over-the-top and the ending is slightly anti-climatic, but this is a wonderful debut that shines with an absorbing narrative voice and a downright terrible, but highly interesting protagonist.

And hey, people who designed the German translation: How could you not pick this amazing cover, and instead decided on a photo that rips of the cover concept of A Little Life? *argh*

I enjoyed this and definitely found it compelling but it was not as all what I expected.

The blurb and the title insinuates it will be a Lolita-esque story, but it is nothing of the sort. Instead it’s a story of a middle-aged professor whose professor husband has been accused of multiple counts of relationships with his students, and his wife’s coming to terms with these relationships while she also deals with an obsession with her colleague.

There was lots I liked about it but by the end I was a bit unsatisfied. I liked how deeply flawed and unlikable the characters were, but I expect it will be criticised for that.

I think this will divide opinion but for me it was an enjoyable read.

3.5 stars

I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. A contemporary novel with a great deal of fixation on the characterisation and perhaps a little overuse of the dictionary and thesaurus at times. I simply do not understand authors who want to show how wide their vocabulary is, to the extent that the reader is reduced to searching on Wikipaedia for definitions of words rarely used or country specific vernacular(this is my long word for this review). For me author's should be reaching out to all readers not just those that sit on the OED whilst they read. AND for me this very nearly made me give up the good fight to get through the book. I am glad that i did not give up as the later half was, as the blurb suggests provocative and witty. It did draw the reader in and it added some life to those turgid inward looks at the characters in the beginning. Overall there are more plus points to the novel but you do have to wade through the difficulties first.

This is not a book I can see myself recommending widely. I think its provocative nature will certainly turn some people off from the start and others will give up whilst they search the dictionary for the vocabulary. I will however remember it for a long time because its eventual narrative was interesting and populated by warped but in many ways likeable characters.

This novel follows an unamed 58 year old protagnist who's husband has been accused of sexual relations with students at the university where they both teach. We arive at the aftermath which leads to the protagonists growing infatuation of a younger married teacher. It raises some interesting questions surrounding ageing and how society expects women to behave. None of the characters are particularly likeable but for me that's what makes them interesting. Superbly written.

I really enjoyed this intelligent, incisive debut that had a lot to say. It is so tightly written and interesting on a number of topics - motherhood, sexual power dynamics, the way women are seen in the world and interesectionality are all deftly and effortlessly woven in amongst many other themes. It is also funny and surprisingly tender and I could not put it down.

Its unfortunate that novels written from the POV of an older woman that discuss her sexuality are so rare as Julia May Jones shows what interesting and fertile ground this is. Her novel is sympathetic but not condescending, and really shows the multitudes of woman.

Thematically and tonally this book reminded me a lot of Lisa Taddeo's Animal, although I found this much more compassionate and interesting. I will be sure to look out for any future works from this author

Enjoyable in many ways, but not as good as I hoped. Introspect and slow burning, with a strangely rapid ending that had a dream sequence feel about it. Well written, but I spent most of the novel wondering where the author was going and finished it thinking, really? Here?

A bit of a dark, saucy but intriguing book which deals with allegations of sexual harassment which are made against the main character's husband from his female students. It centres around her developing obsession on Vladimir, a younger man and newly appointed professor and celebrated novelist. Probably not to everyone’s taste however, I found it addictive.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in return for an honest review

The unnamed 58-year-old narrator and her husband John have been teaching in the English department of a small college for years. From the start, they have found a relaxed way in their relationship, not asking too many questions, but being good partners and caring for their daughter. Now, however, a group of former students accuses John of having abused his power to lure them into affairs. At the same time, a new couple shows up at the college, Vladimir and his wife, both charismatic writers who both fascinate equally. The narrator immediately falls for Vladimir, even more after having read his novel, a feeling she hasn’t known for years and all this in the most complicated situation of her marriage.

Admittedly, I was first drawn to the book because of the cover that was used for another novel I read last year and liked a lot. It would have been a pity to overlook Julia May Jonas’ debut “Vladimir” which brilliantly captures the emotional rollercoaster of a woman who – despite her professional success and being highly esteemed – finds herself in exceptional circumstances and has to reassess her life.

Jonas’ novel really captures the zeitgeist of campus life and the big questions of where men and women actually stand – professionally as well as in their relationship. Even though the narrator has an equal job to her husband, she, after decades of teaching, is still only considered “his wife” and not an independent academic. That she, too, is highly affected in her profession by the allegations against her husband is simply a shame, but I fear that this is just how it would be in real life.

They had an agreement on how their relationship should look like, but now, she has to ask herself is this wasn’t one-sided. She actually had taken the classic role of wife and mother, caring much more for their daughter while he was pursuing his affairs. They had an intellectual bond which was stronger than the bodily but this raises questions in her now. Especially when she becomes aware of what creative potential her longing for Vladimir trigger in her.

A novel which provides a lot of food for thought, especially in the middle section when the narrator is confronted with professional consequences due to her husband’s misbehaviour. The author excellently captures the narrator’s oscillating thoughts and emotions making the novel a great read I’d strongly recommend.

Well-written but ultimately I just couldn’t connect with the characters. I realised early on that I simply wasn’t going to care what happened so I sort of checked out.

The protagonist of this novel is not, as one could lazily expect, the eponymous “Vladimir”, but rather, the book’s unnamed 58-year old female narrator, a popular professor of English literature in an American college. Our protagonist is passing through an eventful period. Her husband, John, is being investigated for inappropriate sexual relationships with former female students. Her lawyer daughter is back home after having broken up with her girlfriend. Last, but not least, our protagonist is also feeling the burden of getting older. Enter Vladimir Vladinski, uprising star of the literary world, married to Cynthia Tong, herself a celebrated memoirist, both newly employed by the college. Vladimir quickly becomes the target of the narrator’s erotic obsessions, seemingly providing her with the opportunity to assert herself and her sexuality in a world which is losing its bearings.

Vladimir is quite correctly described as a debut because it is Julia May Jonas’s first novel. But Jonas, a critically acclaimed experimental playwright, is no rookie and her foray into novel-writing is remarkably assured. Unsurprisingly, she is particularly strong in conveying the voice of the narrator, not only in her interior monologues, but also through the often witty and acerbic dialogue between the various characters. Jonas is also excellent at evoking memorable scenes, even though the concluding ones require some suspension of disbelief.

In certain respects, Vladimir seems to be a playful send-up of Nabokov’s Lolita, the alliterative name “Vladimir Vladinski” at once recalling Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov and “Humbert Humbert”. At a deeper level, Vladimir is also a #MeToo novel which covers some of the same ground as My Dark Vanessa and Magma but in a possibly more nuanced fashion. Indeed, the irony in this work is that the narrator is a respected feminist, a strong and assertive character, who is dismissive of her husband’s accusers precisely because she feels it is offensive to suggest that young women have no “agency” when they seek the attention of older, powerful men. The narrator also seems to imply (as did some female/feminist critics of #MeToo) that the movement was reintroducing an element of prudery in sexual relations and reinterpreting consensual sexual encounters as “wrong”. Jones uses the countercultural voice of the narrator to challenge her readers, while at the same time giving space to alternative positions and ultimately suggesting that the protagonist is way more conservative than she makes herself out to be.

This novel is addictive and entertaining, but ultimately also provides much food for thought…and discussion.

This is a dark, explosive and provocative debut, and I LOVED it. This is the story of a woman in her 50s whose husband is being investigated for his relationship with students in the past, and she becomes obsessed with a new professor in her University. This novel has such an incredible, addicting voice and it's just such fun to read. At times I could hardly believe this is a debut, because its writing was just so electrifying and bold.

The most interesting thing for me was how the main character is complex, unlikable, self-absorbed and how her relationship with Vladimir is purely of her objectifying him and projecting on him her own desires, which is an interesting changed from so many novels where it's the male protagonist obsessing over a younger, beautiful woman. She is stuck in her thoughts about sex and relationships from when she was young and women were trying to become sexually liberated, and this often comes in conflict with the views on sexuality and power dynamics that her daughter and her students have. It's just such an interesting and perceptive look into generational differences in those areas. This novel really got me thinking and adjusting my perspective and getting into the headspace of someone so different from me - which is always the sign, to me, of a brilliant novel. There was no way I was going to give this less than 5 stars. It was just such an enthralling read that had me talking about it nonstop for days. I will absolutely get a physical copy of this novel!