Julia May Jonas tells her story of lust and campus drama in sparkling prose. She is not afraid to venture into the politics of wokeness and the snowflake generation, and often is very, very funny as she does so. (Review by Margaret von Klemperer, courtesy of The Witness)
Vladimir has been making waves among critics and readers with its audacious combination of being a novel of ideas and in-your-face erotic storytelling. It is also in-part a campus novel – the unnamed middle-aged narrator is an English professor and not very successful writer at a small-town American college where her husband John is the head of department.
Or he was. He is currently on suspension, facing historical allegations of affairs with students. At the time, that sort of behaviour wasn’t unusual, but times have changed and in the wake of the Me Too movement, John has found himself in hot water as women who were his students, and who may or may not have enjoyed the attentions of their teacher in the past, raise their complaints. His marriage has been an open one, tolerant of infidelity, but things are about to get a lot more complicated.
The narrator has fallen for a new member of the college staff – Vladimir - who is sexy, youngish and has recently published a critically acclaimed novel. She has fallen hard, and begins to think that Vladimir, who seems very aware of his own charms, reciprocates. Also, the publicity around John’s disciplinary process is creating problems of its own and a little bit of revenge is tempting.
Vladimir also has a wife, Cynthia, who is depressive, and another yet-to-be successful writer, and she is potentially a complicating factor in the narrator’s pursuit of what she thinks she wants. Between professional jealousies, sexual desires and the anxieties of the student body, the ingredients for a very messy situation are all in place.
Julia May Jonas tells her story of lust and campus drama in sparkling prose. She is not afraid to venture into the politics of wokeness and the snowflake generation, and often is very, very funny as she does so. The reader may not sympathise with or approve of all the actions of the narrator, but can’t help enjoying them. It is only towards the end when the story tips over into melodrama, although that has been hinted at in the prologue, that things begin to unravel a bit. Still, what has gone before pretty well makes up for the slightly off-key ending. - Margaret von Klemperer
Vladimir by Julia May Jonas is published by Picador: ISBN 978-1-5290-8046-9
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