Skidmore prof pens new novel
Julia May Jonas writes plays, but “Vladimir” became an escape
Playwright Julia May Jonas started writing novels before, but had never finished one. “I have written many beginnings of novels, and I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but someone would often call for me to write a play or do a workshop and I would put the novel aside and never revisit it,” she said.
Jonas gives credit to the pandemic for allowing her the opportunity to complete her first novel, “Vladimir.”
“I began writing this a month after everything went into lockdown. The novel became my company, my escape, my source of fun. Because theater companies shut down for such a long time, I could stay with this novel and finish it, but there was also something about the narrator’s voice that really unlocked me as a writer.”
When Jonas, who teaches in the theater department at Skidmore College, wrote the first line of the novel — “When I was a child, I loved old men, and I could tell they also loved me” — she knew she had tapped into a very singular voice, and she wanted to keep writing to explore the narrator’s consciousness.
a“The tone of that opening line intrigued me, and I was fascinated by this character and wanted to go deep and explore who she was. The mystery of the narrator kept me writing.”
It was also liberating for Jonas to write a novel. “When I write a play, I know it will be interpreted by many other people. When I write a play, it’s like I’m putting together a map knowing the director will make changes, and the stage will look differently and the performers will offer some choices. I felt so free writing this novel. It was a great feeling knowing the words I was putting down on the page were exactly what I wanted.”
There were two main seed ideas she wanted to explore in this book. “I wanted to write about a wife who had been brought down by offenses she had been aware of, but had not committed, and I also wanted to write about a 58-year-old woman who still feels desire even though society, especially in our country, believes an older woman’s desire is supposed to be fading.”
The main character is an unnamed popular female professor of English at a small liberal arts college who finds herself infatuated with Vladimir Vladinski, a young, well-respected author who has recently joined the English Department.
“Here’s someone who has always seen herself on the right side of history. She’s progressive, has the respect of her students and her peers, but suddenly she finds the ground shifting beneath her. I’ve always been fascinated with people who need to navigate their way through a changing world. She also wants to maintain a certain desire in how she’s viewed, and she would like to explore her own desires.”
Part of the allure of Vladimir is that she wants what he has. “He’s at the start of his life, the start of his career, and the beginning of parenthood. He also has so much respect at the college for being such an acclaimed writer. She wants all that he has. Her writing career never took off, and on some level she knows that as a man as he ages he will grow more attractive as she will become less desirable,” Jonas said.
As a reader much of the fun of “Vladimir” is how far the narrator will go with her attraction to him. “From the early days of writing this novel I had this image of him tied up in a chair. That was the image I was writing to, and I let her lead me to the scene, not sure if this event would actually happen. I love characters who do something questionable on an impulse and then must deal with the consequences.”
The book has received rave reviews, and reviewers point out the humor in the narrator’s observations. “I didn’t set out to write jokes, but I knew her voice was funny to me,” Jonas said. This is a woman who is very smart and the way she sees the world, her observations about the academic world and the people around her were funny. I just let that voice come out.”
She loved setting the story on a college campus and imagined the architecture and the landscape to be Skidmore. “Most college campuses are very closed off, like Skidmore, they’re little liberal enclaves, surrounded by red-state societies. Professors are often treated like celebrities who have a huge amount of power and responsibility in this little world. This can sometimes create a very tense environment for both students and professors.”
Since the book came out in February, Jonas has been very busy between her family life, interviews and publicity events. “I took a year off to have a baby, and I expect to go back to Skidmore next year. I currently live in Brooklyn so there’s some stuff we’ll need to work out, but I’m back at work on another novel, and I have a series of plays coming out at a theater in Brooklyn in 2023 so my work and being a parent to two young children is keeping me busy.”