Vladimir : An upcoming major Netflix series starring Leo Woodall and Rachel Weisz

Two married professors find themselves at the centre of a sordid scandal just as a very alluring - and very married - young author appears on campus in Jonas' incisive and accomplished debut.

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 meet our deliciously incisive narrator: a popular English professor whose husband, a charismatic professor 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 extramarital 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 her bold, edgy, and uncommonly assured literary debut, Julia May Jonas takes us into charged territory, where the strictures of morality bump up against the impulses of the human heart. Propulsive, darkly funny, and surreptitiously moving, Vladimir maps the personal and political minefield of our current moment, exposing the messy contradictions of power and desire.

MEDIA REVIEWS

Female ageing and desire, sexual agency in the era of #MeToo, the relationship between morality and art, even a nod to Stephen King's Misery: it's all here in this sexy stealthy slippery debut, one of the year's hottest reads. - The Daily Mail

This deliciously dark American debut . . . A boisterous campus novel with an outrageously acerbic narrator, it delivers uncomfortable truths - The Guardian

This impressive debut . . . A twisty and thought-provoking tale - The Sunday Times/The Times

Haunted by the spirit of Nabokov, this sly satire challenges today’s “insistence on morality in art” - The Daily Telegraph

This astonishing debut is anything but another #MeToo morality tale . . . I was utterly hooked . . . [by] this twisty, sexy, shocking treat of a novel . . . How on earth will Julia May Jonas better this? - The Sunday Times

Darkly comic . . . Jonas’s novel is full of sly satire . . . The first-person narrative is beautifully rich, and the novel is playing enjoyable games with the ghost of Nabokov throughout - The Daily Telegraph

Vladimir is peppered with subversions . . . Jonas artfully fashions a protagonist mired in contradictions . . . [An] intelligent knowing portrayal of a woman's midlife crisis - 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 . . . A welcome addition to the growing number of #MeToo novels, many of which feel in comparison a little tired - 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 full of nuance, loopholes, granular details that refuse easy definition - The Irish Times

'Vladimir contains far too many uncomfortable truths to be merely fun, but . . . it is, by turns, cathartic, devious and terrifically entertaining.’ - New York Times

'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.’ - Boston Globe

In darkly funny terms, Jonas creates a portrait of a narcissist reckoning with her age and vanity, but also the limits of her power. - Time