Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
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.Female ageing and desire, sexual agency in the era of #MeToo, the relationship between morality and art, even a nod to Stephen King's <i>Misery</i>: it's all here in this <b>sexy stealthy slippery debut, one of the year's hottest reads.</b>
The Daily Mail
This <b>deliciously dark</b> American debut . . . A boisterous campus novel with an <b>outrageously acerbic</b> narrator, it <b>delivers uncomfortable truths</b>
The Guardian
This impressive debut . . . <b>A twisty and thought-provoking tale</b>
The Sunday Times/The Times
Haunted by the spirit of Nabokov, this sly satire <b>challenges today’s “insistence on morality in art”</b>
The Daily Telegraph
This <b>astonishing debut</b> is anything but another #MeToo morality tale . . . <b>I was utterly hooked</b> . . . [by] this <b>twisty, sexy, shocking treat of a novel</b> . . . How on earth will Julia May Jonas better this?
The Sunday Times
<b>Darkly comic</b> . . . Jonas’s novel is full of sly satire . . . The first-person narrative is <b>beautifully rich, and the novel is playing enjoyable games with the ghost of Nabokov throughout</b>
The Daily Telegraph
<i>Vladimir</i> is peppered with subversions . . . Jonas artfully fashions a protagonist mired in contradictions . . . [An] <b>intelligent knowing portrayal of a woman's midlife crisis</b>
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 . . . <b>A welcome addition to the growing number of #MeToo novels, many of which feel in comparison a little tired</b>
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 <b>full of nuance, loopholes, granular details that refuse easy definition</b>
The Irish Times
'<i>Vladimir</i> contains far too many uncomfortable truths to be merely fun, but . . . it is, by turns, <b>cathartic, devious and terrifically entertaining</b>.’
New York Times
'<i>Vladimir</i> goes into such outrageous territory that my <b>jaw literally dropped </b>at moments while I was reading it. There’s a <b>rare blend here of depth of character, mesmerizing prose, and fast-paced action</b>.’<i> </i>
Boston Globe
In darkly funny terms, Jonas creates <b>a portrait of a narcissist reckoning with her age and vanity, but also the limits of her power.</b>
Time
‘<b>What is more delicious than the despicable narrator?</b> . . . Jonas, with a potent, pumping voice, has drawn a character so powerfully candid that when she does things that are malicious, dangerous and, yes, predatory, we only want her to do them again.’
Los Angeles Times
If Netflix’s <i>The Chair</i>, Lisa Taddeo’s bestseller <i>Three Women</i>, and the most compelling passages of Ottessa Moshfegh’s <i>Death in Her Hands</i> had a love child (just go with me here), it would be this fiction debut . . . <b><i>Vladimir</i> leaves the reader with more questions than answers—about sex, and sexual politics—in the most delicious way.</b>
Entertainment Weekly
Funny, wise and instantly engaging, <i>Vladimir </i>is how I like my thrill rides: <b>brainy and sexy.</b>
- Maria Semple, author of <i>Where'd You Go Bernadette</i>,
<i>Vladimir </i>is a thrilling debut – <b>smart, sharp, and über provocative.</b> I devoured it with fascination and awe.
- Lily King, author of <i>Writers & Lovers</i>,
A <b>whip smart and ferociously clever tale</b> of swirling allegiances, literary rivalries, and romantic tripwires detonating hidden mines – <i>Vladimir </i>is an <b>extraordinary debut.</b>
- Adrienne Brodeur, author of <i>Wild Game</i>,
Droll, dry, and pacy, <i>Vladimir </i>is <b>deliciously unsparing and enormous fun</b>.
- Lionel Shriver, author of <i>We Need To Talk About Kevin</i>,
Brilliant and very funny
- Patrick Radden Keefe, author of <i>Empire of Pain</i>,
*A major Netflix series starring Leo Woodall and Rachel Weisz*
A Sunday Times Paperback of the Year
'I was utterly hooked . . . by this twisty, sexy, shocking treat of a novel ' – The Sunday Times
'This clever, engrossing debut explores female creativity, rage and desire . . . Astonishing' - The Guardian
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.
'So exciting . . . Sexy and satirical and incredibly gripping, impossible to put down' - The Observer