Indie Next Pick, February 2022
The Millions Most Anticipated Books of 2022
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Kirkus’s 20 Most Anticipated Books of February
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Publisher’s Weekly Buzz Books, Winter 2022
USA Today 20 Books We Can’t Wait to Read 2022
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Bibliolifestyle Most Anticipated Literary Fiction of 2022
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“Like the man she shackles to a chair in the prologue, once this narrator has you, she won’t let go. A remarkable debut.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Delightful…a witty dance with the ghost of Nabokov and a razor-edged commentary on academia at our current fraught moment…by turns, cathartic, devious and terrifically entertaining.” —Jean Hanff Korelitz, The New York Times (Editor’s Choice)
“Vladimir goes into such outrageous territory that my jaw literally dropped at moments while I was reading it. There’s a rare blend here of depth of character, mesmerizing prose, and fast-paced action.” —Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe
“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.” —Jessica Ferri, Los Angeles Times
“A deliciously dark fable of sex and power… Earmark an entire afternoon to devour this propulsive story of obsession, scandal, and transgressive desire.” —Esquire
If Netflix’s The Chair, Lisa Taddeo’s best-seller Three Women, and the most compelling passages of Ottessa Moshfegh’s Death in Her Hands had a love child (just go with me here), it would be this fiction debut. With a title character who’s a sought-after young novelist new to a college faculty, Vladimir leaves the reader with more questions than answers—about sex, and sexual politics—in the most delicious way. —Entertainment Weekly
“Jonas’s narrator is a work of art in herself.” —The Washington Post
“Timely, whip-smart, and darkly funny.” —People (Book of the Week)
“[Vladimir] soldiers into charged territory… with an unreliable and at times almost defiantly unlikable narrator at the helm. This woman is no joke. She’s ravenous—for rich and indulgent meals, big sloshing glasses of wine and sneaked cigarettes… In taking this older woman’s desire deadly seriously, Vladimir proves seductively subversive.” —USA Today
From the publisher: 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.
Praise & Reviews
“Droll, dry, and pacy, Vladimir is deliciously unsparing and enormous fun.”
—Lionel Shriver, author of We Need To Talk About Kevin
“Vladimir is a thrilling debut—smart, sharp, and über provocative. I devoured it with fascination and awe.”
—Lily King, author of Writers and Lovers
Funny, wise and instantly engaging, Vladimir is how I like my thrill rides: brainy and sexy.”
–Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette?
“A reminder that the best art involves a search for truth. Vladimir is funny, clear, awake, vivid.”
—Amitava Kumar, author of Immigrant, Montana
“Mordantly funny, Vladimir surprisingly upends assumptions about gender, power, and shame. Jonas is off to a strong start.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“A whip smart and ferociously clever tale of swirling allegiances, literary rivalries, and romantic tripwires detonating hidden mines—Vladimir is an extraordinary debut.”
—Adrienne Brodeur, author of Wild Game
“Vladimir is among the best novels of the past two decades. Astonishing, magnificent, dazzling, deeply moving–and also deeply funny–it reminded me of some of favorite works of fiction, from The Age of Innocence to Revolutionary Road to Le Divorce. It is the rare novel that I hoped would never, ever end.”
–Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
“Julia May Jonas’s Vladímír is a compelling debut, discomfiting and riveting, and timely in its themes. With dark humor, pathos and sly references to art and literature, this smart, edgy novel challenges assumptions and forces fresh perspectives.”
—Julia Kastner, Maximum Shelf